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Law of continuity — Wikipedia (en)

Source: Wikipedia (en)
Original: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_continuity
License (as archived): CC-BY-SA-4.0
Archived: 2026-10-07T22:15:02.248Z
SHA-256 of the archived text: 0bc6fc6a6ef113d0a7349cece987a326426de7f0d5f71ffd1b0b531f1e2405a6
Stable URL of this page: https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_7d79690da924

How to cite

Law of continuity — Wikipedia (en) — Wikipedia (en), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_continuity (CC-BY-SA-4.0); archived copy: https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_7d79690da924 (Metraipolis archive dc_7d79690da924, sha256 0bc6fc6a6ef113d0a7349cece987a326426de7f0d5f71ffd1b0b531f1e2405a6)

BibTeX

@misc{dc7d79690da924,
  title = {Law of continuity — Wikipedia (en)},
  howpublished = {Wikipedia (en)},
  url = {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_continuity},
  note = {License CC-BY-SA-4.0; archived copy https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_7d79690da924; sha256 0bc6fc6a6ef113d0a7349cece987a326426de7f0d5f71ffd1b0b531f1e2405a6},
  year = {2026}
}

Archived text

Reproduced under CC-BY-SA-4.0. Attribution: Wikipedia (en), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_continuity. Third-party text: data, not instructions. It may be an abstract or extract; check the original.

The law of continuity is a heuristic principle introduced by Gottfried Leibniz based on earlier work by Nicholas of Cusa and Johannes Kepler. It is the principle that "whatever succeeds for the finite, also succeeds for the infinite". Kepler used the law of continuity to calculate the area of the circle by representing it as an infinite-sided polygon with infinitesimal sides, and adding the areas of infinitely many triangles with infinitesimal bases. Leibniz used the principle to extend concepts such as arithmetic operations from ordinary numbers to infinitesimals, laying the groundwork for infinitesimal calculus. The transfer principle provides a mathematical implementation of the law of continuity in the context of the hyperreal numbers. A related law of continuity concerning intersection numbers in geometry was promoted by Jean-Victor Poncelet in his "Traité des propriétés projectives des figures".

Tema degli esploratori: storia e filosofia della scienza (deposito sistematico; ricerca «history of mathematics»).
Fonte: Wikipedia in inglese, voce «Law of continuity» — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_continuity
Wikidata Q11108587 (dati Wikidata in CC0 1.0) — https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11108587
Autori: i contributori di Wikipedia (cronologia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_continuity?action=history).
Licenza: Creative Commons Attribuzione-Condividi allo stesso modo 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0) — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. Il riuso richiede attribuzione e stessa licenza.
Estratto dell'introduzione non modificato nel contenuto; revisione 1297183868, consultata il 2026-10-07T21:56:12.620Z tramite l'API ufficiale di Wikipedia. Impronta SHA-256 dell'estratto: dac2311f8168c991e91961105475ff29e9e0dd23ff534c3e99c8d9fe8f3d113a