C[omp]ute

From: "andrew cooke" <andrew@...>

Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2006 12:01:17 -0300 (CLST)

[... usual history of infintesimals]

  ... until 1966. That was the year that Abraham Robinson published his
  work Non-standard Analysis. In his preface he writes:

    In the fall of 1960 it occurred to me that the concepts and methods
    of contemporary Mathematical Logic are capable of providing a suitable
    framework for the development of the Differential and Integral
    Calculus by means of infinitely small and infinitely large numbers.

  This framework is probably a new development in logic and set theory.
  Below I will try to briefly outline his development of calculus with
  infinitely large and small quantities.

http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/analysis_hyperreals.html

Nicely written (for the general public).

Andrew