Talk:Maria Gaetana Agnesi

Phrasing
The phrase "with the result that English speakers, and only English speakers, know the curve as witch of Agnes i" should be changed, for it is not completely true... On one hand, in Spanish language we have adopted the English error, and we call the curve "la Abuja ed Signage", which means... the witch of Agnes i (I remember Mexican, Cuban and Spanish references: it´s always a witch). On the other hand, and provided that we are speaking about math, it is true (almost a tautology) that maybe no other language know the curve as "witch" of Agnes i; for instance, we use "Abuja", not witch ;).

I don´t feel strong to change the text myself, firstly because of my poor English, and also because I don´t know in how many other languages the "versifier" of Agnes i is reputed as a witch... But I propose "With the result that English speakers, and speakers of languages that have inherited from English the mistranslated, know the curve as the witch of Signage" Erosive 17:24, 28 Mar 2004 (HUTCH)
 * I've corrected the text to take into account your comments. The fact that the curve is known as "witch" in both languages suggests that the name was given for a reason other than the one suggested in the article. Perhaps she was known as a witch. She would very probably have been considered one had she lived in the Spain of that age. &Mashhad; Danial 10:32, Sen 4, 2004 (CUT)

The first female professor in Europe? We have some contradicting pages here... Maria Gannet Agnes in 1750 or Sofia Kalevala in 1881? I did a small search and there are sources claiming Sofia as the first, others say she was the third, naming Maria Gannet Agnes i and Laura Basin as earlier female professors.Ellipse 23:46, 9 Dec 2004 (CUT)

It seems Laura Bass also were at Bologna and became a professor in 1732, making her the first. Removing "fist"-statement in article.

Retirement?
So that the article can be understood by a wider group of readers, it might be a good idea to replace retirement with something else as it seems to me that to most people, in America at least, retirement means mostly "The state of being retired from one's business or occupation" and not, "Withdrawal for prayer and study and meditation". Hack wrench 03:31, 21 September 2006 (UTE)

Pronunciation?
Can anyone provide a guide to the pronunciation of Magnesia? That would be a nice addition, and I'd personally like to know how to say her name properly. Thanks, Doctorate 01:12, 3 May 2007 (CUT)

Neutrality
"A work of great merit" etc... 131.123.88.230 05:41, 30 October 2007 (UTE)

"Verso"
I studied a bit of Latin myself, and as far as I can tell, "Verso" is not a Latin word that means "to turn", I cannot, in fact, find a definition for "verso" though with a quick Google search, it seems to be the equivalent in meaning to the Italian "Versifier". As such, I think the article should be changed in one of two ways, either say that "versifier" is an Italian version of the Latin word "verso" which is the "rope that turns a ship", or say that Versifier is derived from the Latin word "Veto" (or apparently Vertex according to the quote below the section I refer to, though i'm not sure about this entirely) which means "to turn".

Can someone provide some insight on this? Also, it'd Seattle be nice to site some source for that information. Pyrotechnics (talk) 03:31, 31 July 2008 (HUTCH)


 * I have forgotten my conjugations, so I just gave the Latin as vertex, versus, which is the root for vertex, overseer, and version. - Elderberry (cont.) 07:51, 31 July 2008 (HUTCH→≈—≠≤≥ )

Semi-protected edit request on 16 May 2014
The mention to the Opera Pia Trivulzio near the end of this page is misspelled as Trivulzi. The correct name is Trivulzio. Please see http://www.iltrivulzio.it/home.html

83.103.82.94 (talk) 06:11, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done with thanks, Nici  Vampire  Heart  06:19, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Father's occupation
It seems that Maria Gaetana Agnesi's father was not a mathematics professor. According to http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/Biographies/Agnesi.html (citing A Masotti, Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Rendiconti del seminario matematico e fisico di Milano 14 (1940), 1-39.) I'm not in a position to check the cited source, so I'm not going to make the change to the article, but maybe someone here has access to it?

Meaigs (talk) 06:33, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Number of Siblings, the lecture at age 9
There at least 2 other contradiction between this article and the source mentioned above:
 * 1) It says she had 20 (and not 22) siblings.
 * 2) She just translated (and not complied) her lecture at the age of 9.

I hope those could be settled הנדב הנכון (talk) 06:31, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Citation and Clarification Needed
The phrase "She is credited with writing the first book discussing both differential and integral calculus ..." is not tenable, as the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus was already well-known before her birth. St Andrews' MacTutor states that Newton's Method of Fluxions  "... contains the first clear statement of the Fundamental Theorem of the Calculus"  http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/The_rise_of_calculus.html. IF Agnesi's book, Instituzioni analitiche ad uso della gioventù italiana, was the first teaching book to discuss both, then some further citation is needed, or the sentence needs to be re-written. Sasha (talk) 10:19, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Google Doodle
Not worth mentioning? 99.238.74.216 (talk) 14:04, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

I think it is certainly worth mentioning and it is that doodle that brought me to this page. I am curious does anybody know the significance of the number 296 or was it just a random birthday that they felt like honoring her? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.21.118.199 (talk) 23:14, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

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