Lhuilier, Simon Antoine Jean – Principiorum calculi differentialis et integralis expositio elementaris, 1795 – BEIC 749741

Simon Antoine Jean L'Huilier (or L'Huillier) (24 April 1750 in

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...

– 28 March 1840 in Geneva) was a

Swiss Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina *Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses *Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss Internation ...

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

of French

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

descent. He is known for his work in

mathematical analysis Analysis is the branch of mathematics dealing with continuous functions, limit (mathematics), limits, and related theories, such as Derivative, differentiation, Integral, integration, measure (mathematics), measure, infinite sequences, series (m ...

and

topology In mathematics, topology (from the Greek language, Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a mathematical object, geometric object that are preserved under Continuous function, continuous Deformation theory, deformations, such ...

, and in particular the generalization of

Euler's formula Euler's formula, named after Leonhard Euler, is a mathematical formula in complex analysis that establishes the fundamental relationship between the trigonometric functions and the complex exponential function. Euler's formula states that for an ...

for planar graphs. He won the mathematics section prize of the Berlin Academy of Sciences for 1784 in response to a question on the foundations of the

calculus Calculus, originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the calculus of infinitesimals", is the mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithm ...

. The work was published in his 1787 book ''Exposition elementaire des principes des calculs superieurs''. (A

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

version was published in 1795.) Although L'Huilier won the prize,

Joseph Lagrange Joseph-Louis Lagrange (born Giuseppe Luigi Lagrangia

L'Huilier and Cauchy

L'Huilier introduced the abbreviation "lim" for limit that reappeared in 1821 in

Cours d'Analyse ''Cours d'Analyse de l’École Royale Polytechnique; I.re Partie. Analyse algébrique'' is a seminal textbook in infinitesimal calculus published by Augustin-Louis Cauchy in 1821. The article follows the translation by Bradley and Sandifer in de ...

Augustin Louis Cauchy Baron Augustin-Louis Cauchy (, ; ; 21 August 178923 May 1857) was a French mathematician, engineer, and physicist who made pioneering contributions to several branches of mathematics, including mathematical analysis and continuum mechanics. He w ...

, who would later create his approach based on

infinitesimal In mathematics, an infinitesimal number is a quantity that is closer to zero than any standard real number, but that is not zero. The word ''infinitesimal'' comes from a 17th-century Modern Latin coinage ''infinitesimus'', which originally referr ...

s defined in terms of variable quantities.

Royal Society fellow

He was elected in May, 1791 a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

Note that this

surname In some cultures, a surname, family name, or last name is the portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family, tribe or community. Practices vary by culture. The family name may be placed at either the start of a person's full name ...

is sometimes rendered as ''Lhuilier'' or ''Lhuillier''.

Notes

External links

* 1750 births 1840 deaths 18th-century scientists from the Republic of Geneva Fellows of the Royal Society 19th-century Swiss mathematicians Mathematicians from the Republic of Geneva Members of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities {{europe-mathematician-stub