British influences in the introduction of calculus in Spain (1717-1767)

• Autores: Elena Esther Ausejo Martínez
• Localización: The Circulation of Science and Technology: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science. Barcelona, 18-20 November 2010 / coord. por Antoni M. Roca Rosell, 2012, ISBN 978-84-9965-108-8, págs. 555-559
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • It is well known that military men and Jesuits are the main characters of the process of introduction of calculus in Spain. The first documentary evidence of a Spaniard on Calculus appears in 1711 with the name of Francisco Argáiz de la Torre, who submitted his thesis at the University of Toulouse, under the direction of the Jesuit Jean Durranc. The reorganization of the colleges after the expulsion of the Jesuits (1767) marks the end of a first stage in this process from an educational point of view, and it focused on teaching institutions and textbooks. .

    During this period, calculus was taught in Madrid at the Real Seminario de Nobles and at the Colegio Imperial, at the Colegio de Nobles de Cordelles in Barcelona (all Jesuit), as well as in the Navy, but it was not taught neither in universities nor in the Army.

    Within the framework of Newton’s De methodus fluxionum [1740], the two main influential British textbooks were MacLaurin’s Treatise of fluxions [1742] and Simpson’s Doctrine and Applications of Fluxions [1750]. The former was used as a basis by Pedro Padilla. a military engineer, to write De los cálculos diferencial e integral o méthodo de las fluxiones (1756), the only textbook on calculus actually printed in this period – that was used at the short lived Academia de Guardias de Corps (Corps Guards Academy). Simpson’s work was re-elaborated by the Jesuit Tomás Cerdà in differential notation, and was probably used at the Colegio de Nobles de Cordelles and at the Colegio Imperial. It is also worth mentioning that Cerdá was a disciple of the Jesuit Esprit Pezenas, MacLaurin’s translator into French (1749), and the most probable source of Padilla who, by the way, also referenced Simpson in his book.