Definition:Folium of Descartes/Historical Note

Historical Note on Folium of Descartes

Marin Mersenne had communicated to René Descartes the method devised by Pierre de Fermat for calculating the tangent to a curve.

René Descartes seems to have thought little of this method, believing that it was not sufficiently general to be useful.

The curve now known as the folium of Descartes was used by him in $1638$ as a challenge to Fermat, believing that he would be unable to use this method on it.

Reportedly he was seriously annoyed at Fermat when the latter solved it without any trouble.

Sources

• 1992: George F. Simmons: Calculus Gems ... (previous) ... (next): Chapter $\text {A}.13$: Fermat ($\text {1601}$ – $\text {1665}$)
• 1998: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): folium of Descartes
• 2008: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (4th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): folium of Descartes