The Leibniz catenary and approximation of e -- an analysis of his unpublished calculations

DOI10.1016/J.HM.2019.06.001MaRDI QIDQ2279707zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Authors Michael Raugh, Siegmund Probst

Publication date 13 December 2019

Published in Historia Mathematica (Search for Journal in Brave)

Copyright license Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hm.2019.06.001

zbMATH Keywords

catenarydifferential calculuslogarithmic curvenumber $e$

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

History of mathematics in the 17th century (01A45)

Review text

Some 57 years before Euler published his \textit{Introductio in analysin infinitorum}, in which he explained his treatment of logarithms, Leibniz had already computed \(e\) up to 12 significant digits (but missed it because of a misplaced decimal point) and understood that this number is the base of a logarithmic function. His findings were not published and he only gave a hint in a private letter to Rudolph Christian von Bodenhausen explaining his construction of the catenary published in the scientific journal Acta Eruditorum in June 1691. The authors of the present paper found worksheets of Leibniz preserved at the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek (GWLB) in Hanover which reveal (as in other cases, too) that Leibniz was a truly modern mathematician. The paper is a further important step to understand Leibniz's mathematical thinking and his methods used.

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Cited in

(5)

• One String Attached: Geometrical Exactness in Leibniz’s Parisian Manuscripts
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 918930 (Why is no real title available?)
• Why historical research needs mathematicians now more than ever
• Unchained Catenaries
• On Euler's attempt to compute logarithms by interpolation: a commentary to his letter of February 16, 1734 to Daniel Bernoulli

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