Newton's notation for differentiation
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Newton's notation for differentiation involved placing a dot over the function name, which he termed the fluxion.
Isaac Newton's notation is mainly used in mechanics. It is defined as:
- <math>\dot{x} = \frac{dx}{dt} = x'(t)<math>
- <math>\ddot{x} = x''(t)<math>
and so on.
It is clearly not so useful for high derivatives, however in mechanics and other engineering subjects the use of very high derivatives is limited.
Newton did not develop a standard notation for integration, he seemed to use lots of 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.