Definition:Limit/Historical Note
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Historical Note on Limit
It should be noted that neither Newton nor Leibniz had a clear understanding of the concept of a limit, despite their work on inventing the Calculus.
That understanding came later; the modern concept of a limit was pioneered by the work of Carl Friedrich Gauss and Niels Henrik Abel‎.
However, it was not until Augustin Louis Cauchy, in $1821$, that the limit was given a rigorous definition.
Sources
- 1964: William K. Smith: Limits and Continuity ... (previous) ... (next): $\S 1$: Introduction
- 1992: George F. Simmons: Calculus Gems ... (previous) ... (next): Chapter $\text {A}.26$: Cauchy ($\text {1789}$ – $\text {1857}$)