John Wallis

It was always my affectation even from a child, in all pieces of Learning or Knowledge, not merely to learn by rote, which is soon forgotten, but to know the grounds or reasons of what I learn; to inform my Judgement, as well as furnish my …

the Work of Multiplication and Division is performed by Addition and Subtraction

These Exponents they call Logarithms

as of unspeakable Advantage

The invention was greedily embraced (and deservedly) by Learned Men

I imagined... it was possible... to establish by what means the circle could be squared, or... that it could... not, or... something would emerge... worthwhile.

This method of mine takes its beginnings where Cavalieri ends his Method of indivisibles. ...for as his was the Geometry of indivisibles, so I have chosen to call my method the Arithmetic of infinitesimals.

You may find this work (if I judge rightly) quite new. For I see no reason why I should not proclaim it; nor do I believe that others will take it wrongly. ...it teaches all by a new method, introduced by me for the first time into …

However, it is not unlikely that the Arabs, who received from the Indians the numeral figures (which the Greeks knew not), did from them also receive the use of them, and many profound speculations concerning them, which neither Latins nor …