Newton's notation: Difference between revisions

Newton's notation for differentiation involved placing a dash/dot over the function name, which he termed the fluxion.

Isaac Newton's notation is mainly used in mechanics. It is defined as:

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

${\ddot {x}}={\frac {d^{2}x}{dt^{2}}}=x''(t)\,$

and so on.

Although it is clearly not so useful for high derivatives, in mechanics and other engineering subjects the use of very high derivatives is limited.

Newton did not develop a standard notation for integration but used many different notations; however, the widely adopted notation is Leibniz's notation for integration. In physics and other fields, Newton's notation is used mostly for time derivatives, as opposed to slope or position derivatives.

See also

• Leibniz's notation