Summary
One of the main reasons for mathematicians to accept the calculus was that it had such wonderful applications (extreme value calculations, the solution of differential equations, the determination of areas and more). I shall discuss a whole range of applied problems, and demonstrate one of these (a physics problem about an equilibrium, designed by Johann Bernoulli and published by L'Hospital in the first textbook about the diffrential calculus, 1696). At that time the foundations of the calculus were more or less absent, or at any rate not yet made explicit. But the applications spoke for themselves.

¹ Jan van Maanen is professor of mathematics education at Utrecht University and chair of the Freudenthal Institute. In his former position at the University of Groningen Jan chaired the Mathematics Education group and as of 2004 he also was chair of the Mathematics Department. He is much interested in the history of mathematics and its application in mathematics teaching. In the years 1997 to 2000 he co-chaired a large-scale international study about this topic under the auspices of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction (ICMI).
On Wednesdays Jan pays the cello in a string quartet, and sings in a choir.

PhD History of mathematics 1987 Utrecht University

M.S. Mathematics 1977 Utrecht University

2006- Professor, Mathematics Education, Chair of the Freudenthal Institute, Utrecht University

1992-2006 Assistant Professor of Mathematics, later Associate Professor of Mathematics Education, University of Groningen, Netherlands

1977-1992 Secondary school teacher, combined with various research projects.

Selected publications
Jan van Maanen, ‘L'Hôpital’s weight problem’, for the learning of mathematics 11 No. 2 (June 1991), pp. 44–47
—, ‘New Maths may Profit from Old Methods’, for the learning of mathematics 17 No. 2 (June 1997), pp. 39–46
John Fauvel, Jan van Maanen (eds.), History in Mathematics Education. The ICMI-Study, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers 2000 (ISBN 0-7923-6399-X, 456 pp.)
Jan van Maanen, ‘Precursors of Differentiation and Integration’, pp. 41–72 in: Hans Niels Jahnke (Ed.), A history of analysis, Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society & London Mathematical Society, 2003.