Talk:Newton's notation

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Am I wrong or not -- I thought Newton only developed the overdot notation for the derivative? Dysprosia 08:16, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)

This page may not be authoritative.

Charles Matthews 08:19, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I'm right! Yay :) (I'm not right often ;) I thought the guy that created the prime notation had a name starting with L - Lagrange, here's a ref [1], I'll change these accordingly Dysprosia 08:21, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I changed the interpretation from

\dot{x} = \frac{dx}{dt} = f'(t)
\ddot{x} = f''(x)

to

\dot{x} = \frac{dx}{dt} = x'(t)
\ddot{x} = x''(t)

Due to pages from the BBC and from the University of Texas at Austin

As written it was saying that the derivative of x with respect to t was somehow also the derivative of f with respect to t in one place and the derivative of f with respect to x in another place.

E David Moyer 15:10, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Use

Does anyone know if this notation is actually used today? I've asked several a few math professors and some didn't even know it existed, while the others said it was never used.

In physics, it's commonly used in basic mechanics problems where you know you'll only be dealing with first and second time derivatives (e.g., simple harmonic oscillator). Obviously \dot{x} is much quicker to write than \frac{dx}{dt} or even x^\prime(t), but since it's of such limited usefulness it's usually seen as a special-case shorthand than an actual alternative notation system. — Laura Scudder ☎ 15:13, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Move

The new page is notation for differentiation - apologies for the incorrect link. Geometry guy 22:06, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fluxion

Fluxion leads to a page unrelated to Newton's notation or the little dot on top. It leads to a type of particle. I will remove the incorrect link --DFRussia 09:08, 11 October 2007 (UTC)