“At the time the book of Marquis de l'Hôpital had appeared, and almost all mathematicians began to turn to the new geometry of the infinite [that is, the new infinitesimal calculus], until then little known. The surprising universality of the methods, the elegant brevity of the proofs, the neatness and speed of the most difficult solutions, a singular and unexpected novelty, all attracted the mind and there was in the mathematical world a well marked revolution [une révolution bien marquée.”

1792) as quoted by I. Bernard Cohen, Revolution in Science (1985

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Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle 13
French writer, satirist and philosopher of enlightenment 1657–1757

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