Biography

Michel Rolle, born at Ambert on April 21, 1652, and died in Paris on November 8, 1719, wrote an algebra in 1689, which contains the theorem on the position of the roots of an equation which is known by his name. He published in 1696 a treatise on the solutions of equations, whether determinate or indeterminate, and he produced several other minor works. He taught that the differential calculus, which, as we shall see later, had been introduced towards the close of the seventeenth century, was nothing but a collection of ingenious fallacies.