Binomial Theorem/General Binomial Theorem/Historical Note

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Theorem

The General Binomial Theorem was first conceived by Isaac Newton during the years $1665$ to $1667$ when he was living in his home in Woolsthorpe.

He announced the result formally, in letters to Henry Oldenburg on $13$th June $1676$ and $24$th October $1676$ but did not provide a proper proof (at that time the need for the appropriate level of rigor had not been recognised).

Leonhard Paul Euler made an incomplete attempt in $1774$, but the full proof had to wait for Carl Friedrich Gauss to provide it in $1812$.

This was, in fact, the first time anything about infinite summations was proved adequately.


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