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Johann Bernoulli
(6 Aug 1667 - 1 Jan 1748)
Swiss mathematician.
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Science Quotes by Johann Bernoulli (2 quotes)
Tanquam ex ungue leonem.
One knows the lion by his claw.
One knows the lion by his claw.
— Johann Bernoulli
Latin phrase as given in Charles Boussat, A General History of Mathematics: From the Earliest Times to the Middle of the Eighteenth Century (1803), 334. Reportedly said in 1697, after reading an anonymous solution, that he realized to be the work of Isaac Newton, by its sheer power and imagination. (The Brachistochrone curve problem was to find the shape of a slide down which a frictionless puck would slide in the least amount of time by gravity.)
But just as much as it is easy to find the differential of a given quantity, so it is difficult to find the integral of a given differential. Moreover, sometimes we cannot say with certainty whether the integral of a given quantity can be found or not.
— Johann Bernoulli
Webmaster has looked and found no citation, and no example, in books with this wording, earlier than in a list of quotes, without citation, in Baumslag Benjamin, Fundamentals Of Teaching Mathematics At University Level (2000), 214. The original would be in native French, so different translations are possible. Can you help?
See also:
- 6 Aug - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Bernoulli's birth.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
