Ten misconceptions from the history of analysis and their debunking (Q360440)

The authors state that the idea that infinitesimals were completely abandoned (or `eliminated') by the `great triumvirate' of Cantor, Dedekind and Weierstrass is widespread but wrong. They identify ten misconceptions in the history of analysis and thereby show that the history of analysis was by no means a direct road leading from Leibniz to the 19th century and beyond. They show that a useful number system was already in the hands of Stevin long before Newton and Leibniz so that one cannot claim the success of the triumvirate was only possible due to the introduction of a system of real numbers for the first time in the 19th century. Other points of discussions are Berkeley's criticism of Newton's infinitesimals, the role of d'Alembert, the rigor of Cauchy and his famous `sum theorem', Weierstrass, Dedekind's idea of continuity, the relation between Leibniz and Robinson, the invention of Dirac's function, and Lakatos and Kuhnian relativism. There was always a second path in the history of analysis, in which infinitesimals played a dominant role even after the triumvirate. In an appendix, the construction of hyperreal numbers is outlined and compared to Cantor's construction of the real numbers.