History
The first definition of a tangent was "a right line which touches a curve, but which when produced, does not cut it". This old definition prevents inflection points from having any tangent. It has been dismissed and the modern definitions are equivalent to those of Leibniz.
Pierre de Fermat developed a general technique for determining the tangents of a curve using his method of adequality in the 1630s.
Leibniz defined the tangent line as the line through a pair of infinitely close points on the curve.
Read more about this topic: Tangent
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.”
—Ben C. Bradlee (b. 1921)
“The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“It’s a very delicate surgical operation—to cut out the heart without killing the patient. The history of our country, however, is a very tough old patient, and we’ll do the best we can.”
—Dudley Nichols, U.S. screenwriter. Jean Renoir. Sorel (Philip Merivale)