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Method Of Normals
In calculus, the method of normals was a technique invented by Descartes for finding normal and tangent lines to curves. It represented one of the earliest methods for constructing tangents to curves. The method hinges on the observation that the radius of a circle is always normal to the circle itself. With this in mind Descartes would construct a circle that was tangent to a given curve. He could then use the radius at the point of intersection to find the slope of a normal line, and from this one can easily find the slope of a tangent line. This was discovered about the same time as Fermat's method of adequality. While Fermat's method had more in common with the infinitesimal techniques that were to be used later, Descartes' method was more influential in the early history of calculus. One reason Descartes' method fell from favor was the algebraic complexity it involved. On the other hand, this method can be used to rigorously define the derivative In mathematics ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Calculus
Calculus is the mathematics, mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithmetic operations. Originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the calculus of infinitesimals", it has two major branches, differential calculus and integral calculus. The former concerns instantaneous Rate of change (mathematics), rates of change, and the slopes of curves, while the latter concerns accumulation of quantities, and areas under or between curves. These two branches are related to each other by the fundamental theorem of calculus. They make use of the fundamental notions of convergence (mathematics), convergence of infinite sequences and Series (mathematics), infinite series to a well-defined limit (mathematics), limit. It is the "mathematical backbone" for dealing with problems where variables change with time or another reference variable. Infinitesimal calculus was formulated separately ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Surface Normal
In geometry, a normal is an object (e.g. a line, ray, or vector) that is perpendicular to a given object. For example, the normal line to a plane curve at a given point is the infinite straight line perpendicular to the tangent line to the curve at the point. A normal vector is a vector perpendicular to a given object at a particular point. A normal vector of length one is called a unit normal vector or normal direction. A curvature vector is a normal vector whose length is the curvature of the object. Multiplying a normal vector by results in the opposite vector, which may be used for indicating sides (e.g., interior or exterior). In three-dimensional space, a surface normal, or simply normal, to a surface at point is a vector perpendicular to the tangent plane of the surface at . The vector field of normal directions to a surface is known as '' Gauss map''. The word "normal" is also used as an adjective: a line ''normal'' to a plane, the ''normal'' component of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tangent
In geometry, the tangent line (or simply tangent) to a plane curve at a given point is, intuitively, the straight line that "just touches" the curve at that point. Leibniz defined it as the line through a pair of infinitely close points on the curve. More precisely, a straight line is tangent to the curve at a point if the line passes through the point on the curve and has slope , where ''f'' is the derivative of ''f''. A similar definition applies to space curves and curves in ''n''-dimensional Euclidean space. The point where the tangent line and the curve meet or intersect is called the ''point of tangency''. The tangent line is said to be "going in the same direction" as the curve, and is thus the best straight-line approximation to the curve at that point. The tangent line to a point on a differentiable curve can also be thought of as a '' tangent line approximation'', the graph of the affine function that best approximates the original function at the given point ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Curve
In mathematics, a curve (also called a curved line in older texts) is an object similar to a line, but that does not have to be straight. Intuitively, a curve may be thought of as the trace left by a moving point. This is the definition that appeared more than 2000 years ago in Euclid's ''Elements'': "The urvedline is ��the first species of quantity, which has only one dimension, namely length, without any width nor depth, and is nothing else than the flow or run of the point which ��will leave from its imaginary moving some vestige in length, exempt of any width." This definition of a curve has been formalized in modern mathematics as: ''A curve is the image of an interval to a topological space by a continuous function''. In some contexts, the function that defines the curve is called a ''parametrization'', and the curve is a parametric curve. In this article, these curves are sometimes called ''topological curves'' to distinguish them from more constrained curves su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radius
In classical geometry, a radius (: radii or radiuses) of a circle or sphere is any of the line segments from its Centre (geometry), center to its perimeter, and in more modern usage, it is also their length. The radius of a regular polygon is the line segment or distance from its center to any of its Vertex (geometry), vertices. The name comes from the Latin ''radius'', meaning ray but also the spoke of a chariot wheel.Definition of Radius at dictionary.reference.com. Accessed on 2009-08-08. The typical abbreviation and mathematical symbol for radius is ''R'' or ''r''. By extension, the diameter ''D'' is defined as twice the radius:Definition of radius at mathwords.com. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Circle
A circle is a shape consisting of all point (geometry), points in a plane (mathematics), plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the Centre (geometry), centre. The distance between any point of the circle and the centre is called the radius. The length of a line segment connecting two points on the circle and passing through the centre is called the diameter. A circle bounds a region of the plane called a Disk (mathematics), disc. The circle has been known since before the beginning of recorded history. Natural circles are common, such as the full moon or a slice of round fruit. The circle is the basis for the wheel, which, with related inventions such as gears, makes much of modern machinery possible. In mathematics, the study of the circle has helped inspire the development of geometry, astronomy and calculus. Terminology * Annulus (mathematics), Annulus: a ring-shaped object, the region bounded by two concentric circles. * Circular arc, Arc: any Connected ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fermat
Pierre de Fermat (; ; 17 August 1601 – 12 January 1665) was a French mathematician who is given credit for early developments that led to infinitesimal calculus, including his technique of adequality. In particular, he is recognized for his discovery of an original method of finding the greatest and the smallest ordinates of curved lines, which is analogous to that of differential calculus, then unknown, and his research into number theory. He made notable contributions to analytic geometry, probability, and optics. He is best known for his Fermat's principle for light propagation and his Fermat's Last Theorem in number theory, which he described in a note at the margin of a copy of Diophantus' ''Arithmetica''. He was also a lawyer at the ''parlement'' of Toulouse, France. Biography Fermat was born in 1601 in Beaumont-de-Lomagne, France—the late 15th-century mansion where Fermat was born is now a museum. He was from Gascony, where his father, Dominique Fermat, was a wealthy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 of mass, least action, and other problems in calculus. According to André Weil, Fermat "introduces the technical term adaequalitas, adaequare, etc., which he says he has borrowed from Diophantus. As Diophantus V.11 shows, it means an approximate equality, and this is indeed how Fermat explains the word in one of his later writings." (Weil 1973). Diophantus coined the word παρισότης (''parisotēs'') to refer to an approximate equality. Claude Gaspard Bachet de Méziriac translated Diophantus's Greek word into Latin as ''adaequalitas''. Paul Tannery's French translation of Fermat's Latin treatises on maxima and minima used the words ''adéquation'' and ''adégaler''. Fermat's method Fermat used ''adequality'' first to find max ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 "infinity- th" item in a sequence. Infinitesimals do not exist in the standard real number system, but they do exist in other number systems, such as the surreal number system and the hyperreal number system, which can be thought of as the real numbers augmented with both infinitesimal and infinite quantities; the augmentations are the reciprocals of one another. Infinitesimal numbers were introduced in the development of calculus, in which the derivative was first conceived as a ratio of two infinitesimal quantities. This definition was not rigorously formalized. As calculus developed further, infinitesimals were replaced by limits, which can be calculated using the standard real numbers. In the 3rd century BC Archimedes used what ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Derivative (mathematics)
In mathematics, the derivative is a fundamental tool that quantifies the sensitivity to change of a function's output with respect to its input. The derivative of a function of a single variable at a chosen input value, when it exists, is the slope of the tangent line to the graph of the function at that point. The tangent line is the best linear approximation of the function near that input value. For this reason, the derivative is often described as the instantaneous rate of change, the ratio of the instantaneous change in the dependent variable to that of the independent variable. The process of finding a derivative is called differentiation. There are multiple different notations for differentiation. '' Leibniz notation'', named after Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, is represented as the ratio of two differentials, whereas ''prime notation'' is written by adding a prime mark. Higher order notations represent repeated differentiation, and they are usually denoted in Leib ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Limit (mathematics)
In mathematics, a limit is the value that a function (or sequence) approaches as the argument (or index) approaches some value. Limits of functions are essential to calculus and mathematical analysis, and are used to define continuity, derivatives, and integrals. The concept of a limit of a sequence is further generalized to the concept of a limit of a topological net, and is closely related to limit and direct limit in category theory. The limit inferior and limit superior provide generalizations of the concept of a limit which are particularly relevant when the limit at a point may not exist. Notation In formulas, a limit of a function is usually written as : \lim_ f(x) = L, and is read as "the limit of of as approaches equals ". This means that the value of the function can be made arbitrarily close to , by choosing sufficiently close to . Alternatively, the fact that a function approaches the limit as approaches is sometimes denoted by a right arrow (→ or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
