dly wrote: > Thanks - I guess I was consulting an inaccurate reference--I'll leave > it up to you if you want to send correction to this source: > > http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Euler-MascheroniConstant.html > > Donna > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >
Actually it's still in doubt without consulting orginal sources. The argument that Mascheroni came up with gamma appears to date back to Glaisher's 1870s paper, based on a work he had not seen. The following extract from http://members.aol.com/jeff570/constants.html should allay any suspicions that mathematical notation is set in stone. Cajori makes a remark along the lines "The history of mathematical notation is a history of obsolescence". Bset wishes, John -------extract begins------------------ Euler-Mascheroni constant. Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) used C in De progressionibus harmonicis observationes, Commentarii academiae scientiarum petropolitanae 7 (1734-35), published in 1740, pp.150-161. Reprinted in Opera omnia (1) 14, pp. 87-100. According to Cajori (vol. 2, page 32), Mascheroni used A in Adnotationes ad calculum integralem Euleri (1790-1792). According to a new book by William Dunham, Euler, the Master of Us All (1999), Mascheroni introduced the symbol gamma for the Euler-Mascheroni constant. Dunham has kindly supplied this website with a copy of the paper, "On the History of Euler's Constant," which is the source of this information. [The paper, by J. W. L. Glaisher, appeared in 1872 in The Messenger of Mathematics.] In the paper, Glaisher does not specify where Mascheroni used the symbol, but seems to imply it is in Adnotationes ad Euleri Calculum Integralem, which Glaisher indicates in a footnote is a work he has not seen but which is referred to in volume 3 of Lacroix's Differential and Integral Calculus. Gauss used the Greek letter psi. [Actually $-\Psi_0$. JDR] Julio González Cabillón has found gamma in "Theoriae logarithmi integralis lineamenta nova," an essay submitted by Carl Anton Bretschneider (1808-1878) on October 13, 1835, to Crelle's Journal. The article was published in volume 17, pp. 257-285, 1837. The symbol itself can be found on page 260. DeMorgan used gamma, according to J. W. L. Glaisher in "On the History of Euler's Constant" (1872) in The Messenger of Mathematics. W. Shanks used "E. or Eul. constant" in Proc. Royl. Soc. of London, Vol XV (1867). The letter E was adopted by J. W. L. Glaisher in 1871 and J. C. Adams in 1878. Ernst Pascal retained Mascheroni's notation A in 1900 (Cajori vol. 2, page 32). In vol. VII of "L'Intermediaire des mathematiciens" (1900), G. Vacca (from Turin) asks who introduced gamma. His question #1998 reads as follows: In the German "Encyclopaedie" (1900, vol. II, p. 171) it says that Mascheroni has denoted the Euler's constant 0.577... by gamma. According to my research, this author designated it by letter "A". In "Synopsis" of Mr. Hagen (1891, vol. I, p. 86), it is said that Euler has introduced this symbol in "Acta Petr." (1769, vol. XIV). Mr. E. Pascal, in his "Repertorium" (1900, vol. I, p. 478 of the German edition) reproduces that suggestion. But, in the quoted volume, and in many memoirs of Euler, I have found that this author has just used the symbol "C", 'et parfois' "O". Who is the first mathematician that has introduced the symbol gamma for the Euler's constant? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
