Mathematica DeMYSTiFied

³Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736–1813) was an important mathematician. It is he who introduced the notation f′ (x) (also f″ (x) etc.) for the derivative of f(x) with respect to x. The purpose of the notation, he says, is to free the intellect from the false idea of the infinitely small (as Leibniz’s notation does not free the intellect), and to make clear that the derivative is a function just like f(x), and derived from f(x). The term “fonction derivée” from which the English term “derivative” comes is also due to Lagrange. He first introduced the prime notation in the 1770s but it was done systematically in his Théorie des fonctions analytiques ...