"The beginnings of the Infinitesimal Calculus, in its two main divisions, arose from determinations of areas and volumes, and the finding of tangents to plane curves. The ancients attacked the problems in a strictly geometrical manner, making use of the "s." In modern phraseology, they found "upper and lower limits," as closely equal as possible, between which the quantity to be determined must lie; or, more strictly perhaps, they showed that, if the quantity could be approached from two "sides," on the one side it was always greater than a certain thing, and on the other it was always less; hence it must be finally equal to this thing. This was the method by means of which Archimedes proved most of his discoveries. But there seems to have been some distrust of the method, for we find in many cases that the discoveries are proved by a ', such as one is familiar with in Euclid. To Apollonius we are indebted for a great many of the properties, and to Archimedes for the measurement, of the conic sections and the solids formed from them by their rotation about an axis."
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History of calculus
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