Past exam of the history of mathematics course of the University of Oxford / 2023 / 2

The figure illustrates Pierre de Fermat's use of adequality to construct a tangent to a parabola. Reading the local exam image is decisive: $D$ is the vertex of a parabola, $DC$ lies on its axis of symmetry, $B$ lies on the parabola, and the proposed tangent $BE$ meets the extended axis at $E$. The horizontal through the auxiliary point $O$ meets the axis at $I$; $O$ lies on $BE$, outside the parabola. In particular, $O$ must not be treated as a second point of the parabola. The target is the subtangent $CE$. The diagram and this construction occur in the tangent discussion associated with Varia opera mathematica by Pierre de Fermat. The 1679 book was posthumous: its date does not date the invention of the method.^[ref][ref]

Write $d=CD>0$, $a=CE>0$, and $e=CI$, with $I$ between $C$ and $D$. These are lengths, and the increment $e$ is distinct from the labelled point $E$. Then $DI=d-e$ and $EI=a-e$. The parabola's characteristic relation makes the square of an ordinate proportional to its distance from the vertex of a parabola. At height $I$, the actual ordinate of the parabola is shorter than $OI$. Hencewhere the equality follows from similar triangles $BCE$ and $OIE$.

The method of adequality replaces the comparison by a relation used to extract the condition of contact:Expanding and cancelling $d{a}^2$ gives $-2dae+d{e}^2\sim -a^{2}e$. Divide by the nonzero increment $e$, then suppress the remaining term containing $e$. The result is $a^2=2da$, so, since $a>0$,Thus $DE=DC$: the intersection with the axis lies as far above the vertex of a parabola as $C$ lies below it. This is a concrete construction, not just a rule for computing a numerical slope.

A modern check clarifies why the calculation succeeds without pretending that Pierre de Fermat used a modern limit. Put $D=(0,0)$, let $y$ increase down the axis, and write the parabola as $x^2=ky$, $k>0$. For $B=(b,d)$, with $b^2=kd$, the proposed tangent through $E=(0,-d)$ is $y=2bx/k-d$. Substitution givesIt meets the parabola with a double root at $B$, and for every other point its $y$ coordinate is less than that of the parabola. This also verifies the strict comparison used for $O$.

The significance is a systematic algebraic condition for geometric contact. Subtracting neighbouring expressions, dividing by an increment, and discarding its remaining terms anticipates differentiation. But the historical question is precisely what licenses the last step. The symbol $\sim$ above marks adequality, not ordinary equality at a finite displacement. Treating the construction as an already stated epsilon-delta definition of a limit would conceal the methodological innovation and its unresolved explanatory burden.