The Concepts of the Calculus:

The algebra of inequalities was now there for the calculus to be reduced to; that the calculus

rigorous had risen through consolidation, philosophy, teaching, Lagrange. Cauchy had to work out for

himself in order to define and prove theorems about, limit, convergence, continuity, derivatives, and

integrals. The work of L’Huilier and Lacroix on alternating series was systematically translated by Cauchy

this refined limit-concept into the algebra of inequalities and used it proofs: he gave the statement that the

calculus could be based on limits. Maclaurin had said that the sum of a series was the limit of partial sums

that this was meant something for Cauchy. He assumed that if a series of positive terms is bounded above,

term-by-term, by a convergent geometric progression, then it converges; he proved this by comparison in a

number of tests for convergence;

 The root test

 The ratio test

 The logarithm test

Cauchy gave the modern definition of continuous function that the function f(x) is continuous on a given

interval “the numerical value of the difference f(x+a) – f(x) decreases indefinitely with a.” He proved the

intermediate value theorem for continuous functions using this definition. Cauchy’s treatment both of

convergence and of continuity, implicitly assumed various forms of the completeness property for the real

numbers. He treated as obvious that a series of positive terms bounded above by a convergent geometric

progression, converges. He was the first to exploit inequality proof technique to prove theorems in analysis.
 Lagrange gave the following inequality about the derivative: f(x + h) = f(x) + hf’(x) + hV. He interpreted

this to mean that given any D, one can find h sufficiently small so that V is between –D and +D. Lagrange

believe that any function had a unique power expansion because he believes that there was an “algebra of

infinite series” and Lagrange also said that the easiest way to make the calculus rigorous was to reduce ti

to algebra.

Lagrange state property and the associated inequalities he used them as basis of proofs about

derivatives;

 To prove that a function with positive derivative on an interval is increasing there

 To prove the mean-value theorem for derivatives

 To obtain the Lagrange remainder for the Taylor series

With few modifications Lagrange’s proofs are valid. Cauchy then made some improvements basing them

on his own; he defined the derivative precisely to satisfy the relevant of inequalities.

The last of the concepts we shall consider the integral followed an analogous development. The

integral was usually thought as the inverse of the differential. Cauchy did not like formalistic arguments,

saying that most algebraic formulas hold “only under the certain conditions and for the certain values of the

quantities they contain.” Borrowing from Lagrange the mean value theorem for integrals, Cauchy proved

the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus.