Talk:Augustin-Louis Cauchy

Pronunciation?

Can someone provide a correct pronunciation of "Cauchy"?

I think it should be something like "koh-shee".

The correct French pronunciation is like "koh-shee." The American bastardization version is like "Cushy." - K. Cauchy

Not sure about statement on complex numbers

The article claims that Cauchy "was the first to define complex numbers as pairs of real numbers". Is this misleading? I would like to see a reference, because David M. Burton, in his The History of Mathematics: An Introduction, p. 611, states that Karl Gauss used a geometric interpretation of complex numbers without discussion in his dissertation (1799), explained it to Bessel in a letter in 1811, and published it in 1831. Burton goes on to say that Gauss' representation was in terms of points in the plane. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Scorwin (talk • contribs) 20:34, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

What oath?

I was reading this article and it seems that the oath Cauchy is required to take has a pretty big role on his life. I tried going to the page on École Polytechnique, but there isn't anything there about the oath. I think a good addition to this article would be to explain it or link to it somewhere or even just a description of it. Is it somehow related to the July_Revolution? Wuzzeb 05:13, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC).

Cauchy was a royalist devoted to the House of Bourbon. The oath I think required him to end his allegiance to Charles X of France and he would not do that. Granted this is a very late answer, but political and religious views of mathematicians are often made very unclear at Wikipedia even when they're relevant to the topic at hand. (Which it is relevant in this case on several fronts)--T. Anthony 08:19, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

The German version I believe indicates his family were also royalist and the damage done to them by the July Revolution is part of why he was intense on the matter.(Well going by my interpretation of the babelized English translation)--T. Anthony 08:52, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Looking through the edits it seems little has been added about him as a person since Fall of 2004. (Well I just did, but before that) So I guess that's why this was left unanswered.--T. Anthony 09:54, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Abel and Galois

The page about Cauchy should tell how Cauchy tried to stop Niels Abel and Evariste Galois from getting recognition in the scientific world.

I'd need more information to do that. I've found a bit, but I think more is needed.--T. Anthony 09:57, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

The Wiki article on Galois http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galois contains some information about the interaction of Cauchy and Galois. From that piece, it seems that the oft-repeated charge against Cauchy is in part a mere sentimental legend in support of the tragic, albeit flakey, Galois. People tend to say nice things about guys who die young. LDH 06:18, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Augustin-Louis with hyphen

According to the author of Citizendium article the first name is Augustin-Cauchy, with a hyphen: [1]. Both hyphenated and non-hyphenated variants can be found on the internet. Pavel Vozenilek (talk) 19:20, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Hartshorne's page on Cauchy also uses the hypen. I have made the move. -- Taku (talk) 21:07, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Residue Theorem

There seems to be some dispute concerning the proper statement of the residue theorem. As one can see from the theorem's own page, the recent change is justified. --66.71.55.204 (talk) 04:04, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

There is no dispute: I misunderstood the edit. -- Taku (talk) 11:21, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Place of death

It is hard to tell which Sceaux it is... :-) --Ruziklan (talk) 21:13, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I can narrow it down to one of two places; Sceaux-du-Gâtinais or Sceaux-sur-Huisne. In Bruno Belhoste's biography of Augustin-Louis Cauchy, he died in his country house near Paris. Sceaux-du-Gâtinais is just south of Paris, and Sceaux-sur-Huisne is a little farther away to the west. M larry l (talk) 06:45, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

About uniform convergence mistake.

In the Article about uniform Convergence: Augustin Louis Cauchy in 1821 published a faulty proof of the false statement that the pointwise limit of a sequence of continuous functions is always continuous. Joseph Fourier and Niels Henrik Abel found counter examples in the context of Fourier series. Dirichlet then analyzed Cauchy's proof and found the mistake: the notion of pointwise convergence had to be replaced by uniform convergence.

This is a important fact on the life of Cauchy, and is also used by Lakatos to explain importants facts about mathematics, I need to be added. (I should do it, but I can't now... Then I only note it (sorry))--El Hoy (talk) 13:41, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

The issue of Cauchy's alleged "mistakes" is a complex one, and there are several inaccuracies in the account you presented. Tkuvho (talk) 13:49, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Recent changes on Cours d'analyse

The recent contributions in this section looks suspiciously like an unpublished personal work (sorry, I forgot how this is called in English). Can anyone check this ?--Dfeldmann (talk) 15:42, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

All the additions are in the published literature. For example, the contention that cauchy only used infinitesimals because of the pressure from the Ecole administration has been analyzed and rejected by Laugwitz, along the lines indicated in the new version of this section. Normally one would report such a difference of opinion in the literature as a pair of opposing views, but in this case it seems that the claim could only have been published by historians who never read (or chose not to read) any of Cauchy's research work. Now this latter point is a personal opinion, and certainly does not belong in the article. If you are of the opinion that the disagreement should be presented as such, you are free to voice it. Tkuvho (talk) 17:39, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

This section should be removed or at least radically trimmed. A list of 'misconceptions' about Cauchy's work, which appear to be part of an obscure academic dispute, is not encyclopedic and does not belong here, whether published or not. 155.198.14.33 (talk) 17:56, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

What was the year Cauchy stopped teaching at the Ecole? Did he use infinitesimals after that year? Tkuvho (talk) 13:43, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

(outdent) I am joining this conversation rather late, but I took a glance through Benis-Sinaceur, perhaps his paper could be used to support 1 or 5, but this seems to me to be synthesis at best. I will take a look at the second paper and see if it supports this section a bit better. Thenub314 (talk) 18:42, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

The material is properly sourced. Tkuvho (talk) 08:02, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Psychology of Cauchy's illnesses

I find it quite interesting how Cauchy seemed to be always ill, not in good health for what seemed to be most of his life. His biography by Bruno Belhoste (1991) reminds me of a 1943 biography of Nikola Tesla, and how Tesla was also of ill health, but only in his earlier years. I think it would be intriguing if a psychologist, or psychiatrist studied these great minds of the past with the records we may have and see if they can come up with a basis, or common connection of why and how some have a natural tendency to be sickly. Maybe it is a give and take of the animal kingdom, "you get all this extra brain power, but your body is going to be a challenge for staying healthy". M larry l (talk) 05:27, 4 May 2011 (UTC) St. Martins University; Math Major

It is very possible that his sickness was a physical manifestation of depression he may have had. Intelligent people have been known to have depression or suffer from unhappiness. Ernest Hemingway once said: "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."Cruzdg1 (talk) 06:50, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Don't forget that Descartes was always considered sick, but we have no actual proof to say he was indeed sick. He could have had alergies for all we know. Shelby.Meyenburg (talk) 16:40, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

this is why I think it would be interesting to a group do a study of these "pheneoma" of scientific people of history. Most dont have a lot of proof to their claims. M larry l (talk) 19:52, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't have the impression such speculations would improve the page. Tkuvho (talk) 04:42, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Reversion

I was hoping to find out a bit more about why edits were recently reverted. Specifically because the revert removed reliable sources that had been added to the article. The edit summary said something about "restoring sourced material" but the material was more or less not removed, it had just been summarized differently. All the previous sources had still been cited. Finally I feel the long enumerated list is simply out of place in the article. Thenub314 (talk) 17:17, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I tried to restore the more neutral version, citing Barany. There seems to be some disagreement about whether or not Cauchy had to teach infinitesimals, and the current version made it sound as if it was a mistake to say he was forced. But was careful to keep the reference added, as well as the statement about kinetic vs. epsilonic definitions of a limit. Thenub314 (talk) 18:21, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

What does this mean?

"He started the project of formulating and proving the theorems of infinitesimal calculus in a rigorous manner, rejecting the heuristic principle of the generality of algebra exploited by earlier authors."

It's sheer nonsense. Only on wikipedia... 12.176.152.194 (talk) 19:39, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

See the page generality of algebra. Do you feel that this principle was rigorous? Tkuvho (talk) 22:10, 3 December 2011 (UTC)