Convergence and formal manipulation in the theory of series from 1730 to 1815 (Q885086): Difference between revisions

This paper is the sequel to the article ``Convergence and formal manipulation of series from the origins of calculus to about 1730'', Ann. Sci. 59, No. 2, 179--199 (2002; Zbl 1033.01017). Here the author describes some new findings as the emergence of asymptotic series, the use of recurrent series and the investigation of other infinite processes (continued fractions and infinite products). He maintains that these results cannot be reduced to the original series notion. The debate on divergent series and other related arguments led Euler to give a new definition of the series that generalized the old notion. He defined the sum of an infinite series to be a finite expressions, the expansion of which generates the given series (Euler, De seriebus divergentibus, Novi Comm. Acad. Petropolitanae 5, 1754/55). During the second part of the 18th century, the main lines of research on series increasingly came to stress the formal aspects. The author considers the series of operations by Lagrange and Laplace and the series as solutions for differential equations by Euler and Lagrange. From 1730, trigonometric series appeared in some mathematical and physical investigations. The problem of vibrating string is central in the mid of century and led to the trigonometric series (D'Alembert, D. Bernoulli, Lagrange, Clairaut, Euler). Although the treatment of trigonometric series resembles to that of power series, there were significant differences between the two cases. Fourier looked at trigonometric series from a viewpoint which differs from Euler's and Lagrange's ancient views in his work on the propagation of heat. Also Gauss overcame the formal point of view on the series in his investigation of the hypergeometric series. Using a quantitative notion of series. Gauss succeeded in introducing new functions into analysis and in dealing with them in an appropriate way. In the years which followed the rejection of divergent series and formal manipulation and the adoption of quantitative approach were at the basis of Cauchy's work.