BERTRAND HAUCHECORNE
179 articles published in Tangente
History and CultureN°96Nov 28, 2025Counting in Chinese
The Chinese numeral system dates back to the beginnings of written Chinese, around the third millennium BC.
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History and CultureN°94May 05, 2025To exist is to do mathematics
Pál Erdős (1913-1996) is renowned for his eccentric behavior, but above all for the brilliance of his ideas. His ingenious methods, off the beaten track, his countless publications, and his constant wandering built the image of a legendary scholar.
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History and CultureN°93Feb 11, 2025Al-Khwārizmī's linguistic legacy
Al-Khwārizmī's works were translated into Latin and helped introduce the West to the Indian numeral system; more broadly, they contributed to the early development of algebra. Their legacy lives on in our vocabulary.
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History and CultureN°221Dec 16, 2024Julie de Lespinasse's salon
Julie de Lespinasse, a highly cultured woman and close friend of d’Alembert, opened a salon in 1764 at the corner of rue de Bellechasse and rue Saint-Dominique.
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History and CultureN°221Dec 16, 2024Condorcet: a (real) mathematician?
Although Condorcet is best known today as a philosopher, he began his career as a mathematician. A precocious polymath, mathematics also led him to politics and philosophy.
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KnowledgeN°220Oct 17, 2024Conquering spaces
Sequences and functions can have limits. But the need arose to define these ideas abstractly. The emergence of set theory and algebraic structures led, in the early 20th century, to the concepts of metric, topological and normed spaces. Here is their fascinating story.
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History and CultureN°90May 06, 2024Did you say "transcendental"?
In Latin, the verb transcendere combines trans, "beyond," with scandere, "to climb"; it therefore literally means "to climb beyond," "to cross" or "to surpass."
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History and CultureN°90May 03, 2024They paved the way
A tribute to the pioneers who blazed the trail for others to follow.
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History and CultureN°90May 03, 2024On the road to transcendence
Among irrational numbers, transcendental numbers are not roots of any polynomial equation with integer coefficients. They seem to transcend common sense, hence their name. Cantor showed that they make up the overwhelming majority of the real numbers, without identifying a single one!
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Math for everyoneN°217Apr 10, 2024An exhibition to set up near you
"Why do we lean into turns?" is the title of an exhibition accompanying the release of Amandine Aftalion's book.
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Math for everyoneN°216Feb 21, 2024A fine remainder
Replacing the function itself with a Taylor expansion is justified only if this approximation does not alter the calculation of the properties being studied, whether a limit, an upper bound, or something else. The behavior of the remainder is therefore important.
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Math for everyoneN°216Feb 20, 2024The origins of function expansions
The first power-series expansions of functions emerged alongside the development of differential and integral calculus in the late 17th century. Truncating them produces Taylor polynomials!
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