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Concept

Method of indivisibles

The image depicts a three-dimensional representation of the method of indivisibles, a pre-calculus technique for calculating areas and volumes by dividing shapes into infinitesimally thin slices.

A pre-calculus technique, formalised by Cavalieri in the 1630s, for computing the area of a region or the volume of a solid by treating it as an infinite collection of parallel slices of vanishing thickness. The method gave correct answers in cases where classical Greek geometry had no tools, but its handling of "the infinitely small" provoked decades of philosophical objection. Newton and Leibniz would later replace it with the differential calculus.

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