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Cauchy , the limit concept and

Calculus

Cauchy, the limit concept and

Calculus
By Ceorge Mpantes
....According a traditional classical vision Cauchy was the first
mathematician to make a rigorous study of the Calculus. His book Cours d
Analyse algebrique (Paris 1821) , must be considered a fundamental treatise from the formal point of
view , too, and it developed many basic analytical theorems as rigorously as possible(Morris
Klein)

Abstract
Cauchy wisely developed an acceptable

theory of limits,

indispensable for the development of Analysis , defining then continuity,

differentiability and the definite integral in terms of the limit concept. But
he ignored the true structure of the numbers which were the material of
his theory. Indeed the real number system had been taken as granted
based on a simple intuitive geometrical perception. So he maintained the
infinitesimals and their philosophy in Analysis, in the description of limits,
his work

being

the bridge between two eras,

the old infinitesimal

concept period and the arithmetization of analysis (Weierstrass)

A little history
The history of the foundations of Calculus verifies what Einstein
said about mathematics: "mathematics

has not rigor

when is referred in reality , and when it has rigor

is not referred in reality."

Indeed with the hazy

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Cauchy , the limit concept and
Calculus
infinitesimals, mathematics calculated the orbits of the planets. To gain
rigor, they had to study the real numbers.
The bridge between the two, was Cauchy and his negotiation of limits.
Newton used the velocity to explain the derivative viz. a non mathematical idea. The
terminology in terminology

of Barrow, Leibnitz, Rolle

and others was abbreviated and

obscure, a quantity is either something or nothing; if it is something it has not vanished; if it is

nothing it has vanished completely.. (DAlembert)

Leibnitzs attempts to explain particularly his notion of infinitesimals were so

numerous that many pages can be devoted to them . In an article in Acta of 1689, he said
that infinitesimals are not real but fictitious

numbers . However , these fictitious or ideal

numbers , he asserted , are governed by the same laws as ordinary numbers. He said that
the terms infinite and infinitesimal merely signified quantities that one can take as large or
as small as one wished in order to show that the error occurred is less than any number that
can be assigned ; in other words , that there is not error. One can use these ultimate things
as a tool , much as algebraists use imaginary roots with great profit .
But since he could not satisfy his critics , he enunciated a philosophical principle
known as the principle of continuity which affirmed that if a variable at all stages
enjoys a certain property , its limit will enjoy the same property. But this principle was not
and is not today a mathematical axiom(Morris Klein Mathematics , the loss of certainty
p.136)

The approach to limits had been recommended by several keen

minds before Cauchy , as G.Wallis, J.Gregory, , Huillier, Lacrois and
others. DAlembert suggested repeatedly the limit concept (... The theory of
limits is the base of the true metaphysics of the differential calculus ) . Cauchy was influenced

by these writings. He was very explicit that as to methods i have sought to give them
all the rigor that one can demand in mathematics. .

His three great treatises :the Cours d

analyse de l Ecole Polytechnique (1821), Resume des lecons sur le calcul infinitesimals
(1823) , and lecons sur le calcul differentiel (1829) were his greatest contributions into the
calculus.

With Cauchy the scenery changes as he took the first

steps resolving the crisis by replacing the hazy method of infinitesimals
by the precise method of limits It is what Cauchy writes: "My basic purpose is to
reconcile the rigor which I have followed as a rule in the Cours d 'analyse with the simplicity that results
from the direct consideration of infinitesimals sizes."

So it appears that Cauchy has not

explicitly excluded them, but in his textbooks of 1821 through 1826, he

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Cauchy , the limit concept and
Calculus
hovered between a use of actual infinitesimals and limits based

on

numbers.
This will be our basic reference for a first review of the ideas of Cauchy

on

infinitesimals. He did not want to displace infinitesimals from analysis, as he used them with
increasing frequency in his work, e.g. yet it was based on infinitesimals to express the
property of uniform convergence. But he describes them as the limit of a zero sequence, by
palpating

the

r e a l n u m b e r s.

Real numbers (known as

R), although

are widely used in high

school, were never been properly inserted their concept, therein. What are
the real numbers?
Spivak at his

Calculus

exaggerates that the status of

'completeness' of real numbers is the basis for the most fundamental

theorems of continuous functions: theorem of the mean value and the two
theorems of Weierstrass . This property takes us away from the purely
algebraic nature of previous sets of numbers, ie integers and fractions,
and

introduces

things

about

the

infinite

(limits,

derivatives.

).

So to understand the concepts of Calculus, we must first understand the

entire R. Since Zeno until

Cauchy, what was missing and created the

paradoxes and logical gaps was the ignorance of numbers with which we
engaged, as the Calculus was finally calculus in numbers.
In the mid 19th century, the triumvirate (Dedekind, Cantor,
Weierstrass) constructed the real numbers so the concept of limit, central
concept anymore on the foundations of calculus is only arithmetic, based
on the system of real numbers and free from intuitive, geometrical or
physical representations. Based on a preliminary construction of the real
numbers which can prove the non-existence of the infinitely small and
infinitely large numbers, the presentation of the triumvirate exclude the
notion of infinitesimals by the analysis

Cholera-bacilli of mathematics, Cantor.

Cauchy described infinitesimal with the limits and Weierstrass abolished

them but he maintained the limits. Weierstrass added the arithmetization
of analysis i.e the theory of real numbers , without refuting anything in
Cauchys work.
Cauchys work, being the bridge between two eras, has been
deeply criticized by many,

as Freudenthal, Robinson, Lakatos, Cleave,

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Cauchy , the limit concept and
Calculus
Laugwitz, and others. Some of them deem him from after the Weirstrass
perspective, others from the perspective of
(1960).

the non standard analysis

Its work is a first reading but with the second reading we

understand that has exposed deeply hidden properties of numbers which

ultimately constituted the core of the

new foundations of calculus

(numerical continuum).
So

if we locate his work in time (paradigma), Cauchy is a pioneer,

because correctness must be always investigated in its own conceptual

context and not against contemporary standards , in order to avoid the
imposition
different

of modern conceptual
ones

(Euclid

and

Wallis

frameworks to works based upon

were

rigorous

in

their

own

ways....Gordon M Fischer). Cauchy proceeded from intuition, which had a

metaphysical background of centuries, to the process of rigor of logic,. Let
us remember that method and terminology of infinitesimals was so strong
that it appears in classic works even until 1953 !.

If finally

the

infinitesimals were banished from Calculus, today the concepts of

function, limit , continuity, the derivative,

and the integral are taught

through the basic concept of limit, introduced by Cauchy.

The fundamental ideas

The elements of his theory can be traced back to Newton and to Leibniz (and
beyond) but he provided a synthesis of the doctrine of limits on one hand and of
the doctrine of infinitely small and large quantities on the other, by assigning a
central role to the notion of a variable which tends to a limit, in particular to the
limit zero" [Robinson 1966, 270,271, 2761.

Cauchys defi nition of a variable

"A quantity called variable when one is thinking it, as to take
consecutively a number of different values." The variable amounts used in
the Cours d 'Analyse is today known as sequences: when in every natural
number we assign a real number , not a length or area or a time period
etc. then we have a variable quantity,
eg if

an = 1 / n that is the endless succession 1 1/2,, 1 / 3,1 / 4, ..., 1, /

v, ... .. the values of the sequence are arithmetic, so the foundations are

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Cauchy , the limit concept and
Calculus
transported to arithmetic...this is the first step beyond the intuition, as it
begins to be perceived that intuition can not work in the realm of infinity,
where we have only numbers and logic.

Cauchy's defi nition of a limit

.When the values successively attributed to the same variable
approach indefinitely a fixed value, eventually differing from it by as little
as one could wish, that fixed value is called the limit of all the others.
What is the innovation? Until then the more likely illustration to be called
to mind for the limit process, was that of a circle as the limit of a polygon.
In his definition Cauchy, (Cours d analyse) divorced the idea from all
reference to geometrical figures or magnitudes. This is an arithmetical
definition of limit. This limit definition is expressed algebraically with
inequalities. Here the inequalities being symbols of approximation, now
become symbols of precision.
The number is the limit of the sequence if for every >0 there is 0
such as for >0 we have |-|<..(1).

This definition captures mathematically the meaning of the words as

approach indefinitely or as one could wish without any reference on
geometrical representations.

zero sequence
is a sequence that has as limit zero or
for every >0 there is 0 such that for >0 we have ||<

Cauchy sequence
A sequence is called a Cauchy sequence if the terms of the sequence
eventually all become arbitrarily close to one another.
That is, given > 0 there exists N such that if m, n > N then |am- an| < .

Cauchys criterionof convergence (Ouevres Compltes)

A necessary and sufficient condition that the sequence converge to a
limit is that it is a Cauchy sequence . So Cauchy has not presented a

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Cauchy , the limit concept and
Calculus
proof for the sufficient of the criterion. The reason is that there was not an
arithmetical definition of the real numbers in his era. Without a definition
of the irrational numbers , this part of the proof is logically impossible.
Cauchy had stated in his Cours d analyse that irrational
numbers are to be regarded as the limits of sequences of rational
numbers. The necessity of the condition follows immediately from the
definition of convergence, but the proof of the sufficiency

requires a

previous definition of the system of real numbers, in which belongs the

supposed limit S. How can we prove that the limit of the sequence 1, 1,4,
1,41

, 1,414

.is the number 2 if we do not prove previously the

existence of this number? (Carl B.Boyer ).. So here happens a circularity

that seems Cauchy did not notice but tacitly assumed that every (Cauchy)
sequence had a limit.!1. Cauchys theory of convergence lost in rigor
because of

the phenomenon of irrational numbers. Inall, the so-called

Cauchy criterion (for real sequences, say) is not a little proposition about
convergence, but a deep theorem about the fine structure of R.

Infi nitesimal
Upon the basis of this arithmetical definition of limit, Cauchy then
proceeded to define that elusive term , infinitesimal.
When the successive absolute values of a variable decrease
indefinitely in such a way as to become less than any given
quantity, that variable becomes what is called an infinitesimal.
Such a variable has zero for its limit.
An infinitesimal was consequently not different from other variable ,
except in the understanding that it is to take on values converging
towards zero as a limit.(Carl Boyer)
Cauchy regarded his theory of infinitely small quantities as a satisfactory
foundation
1

for

the

theory

of

limits

Today we know that this happens only in R.

and

(d'Alembert's

suggestion

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Cauchy , the limit concept and
Calculus
notwithstanding) he did not introduced the latter in order to replace the
former. His proof procedures thus involved both infinitely small (and
infinitely large) quantities and limits. ...Thus, Cauchy stands in the history
of the Calculus not as a man who broke with tradition and swept away old and
rotten foundations to make room for new and sound ones but rather as a link
between the past and the future. " [Robinson 1966, 270,271, 2761]

So we have the scheme

infinitely small quantities
infinitesimals

terms of a zero sequence

the limit of a zero sequence as the limit never

coincides with the terms of the sequence

Cauchy's defi nition of continuity:

Let f (x) be a function of a variable x, and let us suppose that, for
every value of x between two given limits, this function always has a
unique and finite value. If, beginning from one value of x lying
between these limits, we assign to the variable x an infinitely small
increment a, the function itself increases by the difference f (x + a) f (x), which depends simultaneously on the new variable a and on
the value of x. Given this, the function f (x) will be a continuous
function of this variable within the two limits assigned to the
variable x if, for every value of x between these limits, the absolute
value of the difference f (x + a) - f (x) decreases indefinitely with
that of a. In other words, the function f (x) will remain continuous
with respect to x between the given limits if, between these limits,
an infinitely small increment of the variable always produces an
infinitely small increment of the function itself.
Cauchy's defi nition of the derivative:
When a function y = f (x) remains continuous between two given
limits of the variable x, and when one assigns to such a variable a
value enclosed between the two limits at issue, then an infinitely

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Cauchy , the limit concept and
Calculus

small increment assigned to the variable produces an infinitely small

increment in the function itself. Consequently, if one puts Dx = i, the
two terms of the ratio of differences

Dx

/Dy = [f (x + i) - f (x)] / i will be

infinitely small quantities. But though these two terms will approach
the limit zero indefinitely and simultaneously, the ratio itself can
converge towards another limit, be it positive or be it negative. this
limit, when it exists, has a definite value for each particular value of
x; but it varies with x. ... The form of the new function which serves
as the limit of the ratio

Dx

/Dy = [f (x + i) - f (x)] / i will depend on the

proposed function y = f (x). In order to indicate this dependence,

one gives the new function the name derived function, and
designates it with the aid of an accent by the notation y' or f '(x).
Cauchy and the integral of a continuous function
Cauchy released the study of the integration from its tie

with the

derivation by the fundamental theorem of calculus.

He expresses the integral with the magic limits!

Let f(x) continuous in [,] and we devide [,] in parts with the
1

values , , .. =.

We form the sum

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Cauchy , the limit concept and
Calculus
n

S ( x k x k 1 ) f ( x k 1 )
k 1

Geometrically we see that S is the area of the orthogonals, but Cauchy

made no reference to geometry. Instead of indicating to increase the
orthogonal reducing their bases , he refers to an unlimited increase in the
k

number n, and decrease the differences (x -x

k-1

). He defines

definite

integral of f from a to b, the limit S as number of intervals increases

infinitely , ie

f ( x) dx limS
n

that is the area of the scheme under the curve y=f(x)

The logical gap of Cauchy-the

foundations .
The bridging of the gap between the areas of distinctness and
continuity, or between arithmetic and geometry, is a central, perhaps the more
central problem of the foundations of mathematics .... this gap is even the oldest
problem in the foundations of mathematics and in the related philosophical fields
.... Abraham Fraenkel

Cauchy had stated in his Cours d analyse that irrational numbers

are to be regarded as the limits of sequences of rational numbers. Here
the existence of the irrational number depends,

upon the known

existence and hence the prior definition, of the very quantity whose
definition is being attempted.

Example
Consider the sequence defined by

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Cauchy , the limit concept and
Calculus
x1=1, xn+1=1+1/ (1+xn)
We can show that this sequence is a Cauchy sequence in Q, but there is no
xQ that is a limit of the sequence.
Why is that? Well, consider the same sequence as a sequence in the
complete metric space X=R, we can now show that (xn)nN converges to
2R, but 2 is not in Q. So while the sequence converges in R, it doesn't
converge in Q. Nevertheless it is a Cauchy sequence in both spaces.
(http://math.stackexchange.com/users/86801/christoph)
We must define the irrationals from the rationals , but independently of
the limit concept.
A rigorous way to construct the reals from the rationals turns to be
somewhat difficult requiring a bit more machinery than what was needed
to pass from the naturals to the integers , or from the integers to the
rationals. In those two constructions , the task was to introduce one more
algebraic operation to the number system we get integers from naturals
by introducing subtraction, and get the rationals from the integers by
introducing division. But to get the reals from the rationals is to pass from
a discrete system to a continuous one, and requires the introduction of a
somewhat different notion, that of a limit.
We know that the set of the rational numbers is

a discrete one,

even if between two rationals there is always another. But the rationals do
not contain the 2. Now the task is to explore the gaps in the rational
numbers as to fill them in using limits so to create the real numbers. So
we can approach as we want the number 2 with the sequence 1, 1,4,
1,41

, 1,414

.assuming , in view of the definitions of limit and

convergence the existence of this number as previously demonstrated or

defined, creating so the new numbers. The real number system will end up
being a lot like the rational numbers , but will have new operations
notably that of supremum, which can then be used to define limits and
thence to everything else that calculus need.
The mathematicians Weierstrass, Dedekind and Cantor attempted
independently during the second half of the 19th century , to define
constructively

the irrational numbers , through the concept of the

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Cauchy , the limit concept and
Calculus
continuity of numbers , which was the most important of all. Especially
Dedekind except that defined the irrational numbers regardless of the
meaning of limit, gave an answer to the nature of continuous magnitude.
Specifically

this

issue

is

developed

in

our

article

https://www.scribd.com/doc/217810599.
This ignorance of the structure of the real numbers before the
troika, the continuum, created some more errors in Cauchys work , but
we do not mention them, because these do not reduce the value of his
work. f.e.
One important theorem about mathematical continuum: the mean
value theorem in Cauchys proof (1821) is intuitively obvious: if a
continuous line has one of its extremeties in one side of a right line and
the other on the other side of the same right line , then the continuous line
cuts through the right line. But this is not a proof. Cauchy does not have a
rigorous notion of continuity , nor of a curve. Fortunately the theorem in
Analysis is true, we can demonstrate it rigorously.

Conclusion
I think we were able to discern clearly that the foundations of
Calculus are located deeply in the real numbers, but the foundations of
its formulation is in Cauchys work.

References
R.Dedekind : Continuity and irrational numbers , the nature and
meaning of numbers, internet

( ):

,
Spencer Scoular :, the unlimited infinite , exploring the philosophy
of Mathematics
Carl

B.

Boyer:

the

history

of

Calculus

and

its

conceptual

development, Dover
:
Howard

Eves

foundations

and

fundamental

concepts

mathematics, Dover
Ethan D.Bloch

Springer: The real numbers and real analysis

of

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Cauchy , the limit concept and
Calculus
(Eric Schechter, : What are the real numbers really?
Morris Klein : Mathematics the loss of certainty, Dover
HISTORIA MATHEMATICA 5 (1978) , 313-331
CAUCHY AND THE INFINITELY SMALL
BY GORDON M, FISHER,

JAMES MADISON UNIVERSITY, HARRISONBURG, VA 22801

Cachy:

Cours

analyse

http://www.springer.com/us/book/9781441905482
http://math.stackexchange.com/users/86801/christoph
http://math.stackexchange.com/users/1303/christian-blatter
George Mpantes mathematics teacher
.gr

HISTORIA MATHEMATICA 5 (1978) 313-331

CAUCHY AND THE INFINITELY SMALL

BY GORDON M, FISHER, JAMES MADISON UNIVERSITY, HARRISONBURG, VA 22801

www.mpantes