transcendental law of homogeneity
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In mathematics, the transcendental law of homogeneity (TLH) is a heuristic principle enunciated by
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in addition to ...
most clearly in a 1710 text entitled ''Symbolismus memorabilis calculi algebraici et infinitesimalis in comparatione potentiarum et differentiarum, et de lege homogeneorum transcendentali''. Henk J. M. Bos describes it as the principle to the effect that in a sum involving
infinitesimal In mathematics, an infinitesimal number is a non-zero quantity that is closer to 0 than any non-zero real number is. The word ''infinitesimal'' comes from a 17th-century Modern Latin coinage ''infinitesimus'', which originally referred to the " ...
s of different orders, only the lowest-order term must be retained, and the remainder discarded. Thus, if a is finite and dx is infinitesimal, then one sets :a+dx=a. Similarly, :u\,dv+v\,du+du\,dv=u\,dv+v\,du, where the higher-order term ''du'' ''dv'' is discarded in accordance with the TLH. A 2012 study argues that Leibniz's TLH was a precursor of the
standard part function In nonstandard analysis, the standard part function is a function from the limited (finite) hyperreal numbers to the real numbers. Briefly, the standard part function "rounds off" a finite hyperreal to the nearest real. It associates to every suc ...
over the hyperreals.


See also

* Law of continuity *
Adequality Adequality is a technique developed by Pierre de Fermat in his treatise ''Methodus ad disquirendam maximam et minimam'' (a Latin treatise circulated in France c. 1636 ) to calculate maxima and minima of functions, tangents to curves, area, center o ...


References

History of calculus Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz {{Math-hist-stub