Beyond Cartesian limits: Leibniz's passage from algebraic to ``transcendental'' mathematics (Q2490949): Difference between revisions

Descartes excluded non-algebraic curves from geometry. Leibniz went further: in 1674 he still excluded helical curves but included, for example, the cycloid and the parabolic trochoid. In this lovely paper the author shows how the young Leibniz extended mathematics by building on Descartes' work. Leibniz criticized Descartes for restricting geometry to algebraic curves and he was convinced of the necessity to include transcendental curves. The study of transcendental quantities was for Leibniz intimately related to the investigation of the infinite. Yet he did his best to make every extension of the realm of geometry satisfy Descartes' demand for exactness. He argued, for example, that a well defined infinite series is exact because the mind can ``rush through it by a single stroke''. That is how, creating new terminology, new objects, new rules, Leibniz brought about a major extension of mathematics.