Guillaume François Antoine, Marquis de l'Hôpital
| Guillaume de l'Hôpital | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | 1661 Paris, France |
| Died | 2 February 1704 Paris, France |
| Nationality | French |
| Fields | Mathematician |
| Institutions | French academy of sciences |
| Academic advisors | Johann Bernoulli |
| Known for | |
Guillaume François Antoine, Marquis de l'Hôpital (French: [ɡijom fʁɑ̃swa ɑ̃twan maʁki də lopital]; 1661 – 2 February 1704) was a French mathematician. His name is firmly associated with l'Hôpital's rule for calculating limits involving indeterminate forms 0/0 and ∞/∞. Although the rule did not originate with l'Hôpital, it appeared in print for the first time in his treatise on the infinitesimal calculus, entitled Analyse des Infiniment Petits pour l'Intelligence des Lignes Courbes. This book was a first systematic exposition of differential calculus. Several editions and translations to other languages were published and it became a model for subsequent treatments of calculus.
L'Hôpital was born into a military family. His father was Anne-Alexandre de l'Hôpital, a Lieutenant-General of the King's army, Comte de Saint-Mesme and the of Gaston, Duke of Orléans. His mother was Elisabeth Gobelin, a daughter of Claude Gobelin, Intendant in the King's Army and Councilor of the State.
L'Hôpital abandoned a military career due to poor eyesight and pursued his interest in mathematics, which was apparent since his childhood. For a while, he was a member of Nicolas Malebranche's circle in Paris and it was there that in 1691 he met young Johann Bernoulli, who was visiting France and agreed to supplement his Paris talks on infinitesimal calculus with private lectures to l'Hôpital at his estate at Oucques. In 1693, l'Hôpital was elected to the French academy of sciences and even served twice as its vice-president. Among his accomplishments were the determination of the arc length of the logarithmic graph, one of the solutions to the , and the discovery of a turning point singularity on the involute of a plane curve near an inflection point.
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