David Eugene Smith citations

Page 2

“He used capital vowels for the unknown quantities and capital consonants for the known, thus being able to express several unknowns and several knowns.”

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David Eugene Smith

Source: History of Mathematics (1925) Vol.2, p. 430; footnote

“The excellent work of Tropfke is an example of the tendency to break away from the mere chronological recital of facts.”

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David Eugene Smith

History of Mathematics (1923) Vol.1

“Of the contemporaries of Newton one of the most prominent was John Wallis. …Wallis was a voluminous writer, and not only are his writings erudite, but they show a genius in mathematics… He was one of the first to recognize the significance of the generalization of exponents to include negative and fractional as well as positive and integral numbers. He recognized also the importance of Cavalieri's method of indivisibles, and employed it in the quadrature of such curves as y=xn, y=x1/n, and y=x0 + x1 + x2 +… He failed in his attempts at the approximate quadrature of the circle by means of series because he was not in possession of the general form of the binomial theorem. He reached the result, however, by another method. He also obtained the equivalent of ds = \! dx \sqrt{1+(\frac{dy}{dx})^2} for the length of an element of a curve, thus connecting the problem of rectification with that of quadrature.”

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David Eugene Smith

History of Mathematics (1923) Vol.1