Quotations

Johann Bernoulli


View the biography of Johann Bernoulli


I recognise the lion by his claw.

[After reading an anonymous solution to a problem that he realised was Newton's solution.]
Quoted in G. Simmons, Calculus Gems, New York: McGraw Hill, 1992, p. 136.
But just as much as it is easy to find the differential of a given quantity, so it is difficult to find the integral of a given differential. Moreover, sometimes we cannot say with certainty whether the integral of a given quantity can be found or not.
A quantity which is increased or decreased by an infinitely small quantity is neither increased nor decreased.
Quoted in D MacHale, Comic Sections (Dublin 1993)