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On This Day

Date

Year

Month

Day

10-29-1656

Edmond Halley, English astronomer, born in London. He succeeded John Wallis as Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford University in 1704 and John Flamsteed as Royal Astronomer in 1720, and Halley's Comet bears his name.

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Edmond Halley
John Wallis
John Flamsteed
10-29-1669

Isaac Newton appointed Lucasian Professor at Cambridge University at age 26. This post required Newton to lecture once each week on "some part of Geometry, Astronomy, Geography, Optics, Statics, or some other Mathematical discipline," and to deposit ten of those lectures in the library each year. Students were required to attend, but like all other requirements, they ignored this one, too. Only three people are known to have attended a lecture at Cambridge by Newton.

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Isaac Newton
10-29-1675

Gottfried Leibniz first used the integral sign as well as the "d" for differential. He also constructed what he called the "triangulum characteristicum," which had been used before him by Pascal and Barrow.

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Gottfried Leibniz
Special Triangles (including the Characteristic Triangle)

Dummy View - NOT TO BE DELETED