The Intermediate Value Theorem was first proven by Bernard Bolzano in 1817. The French mathematician Augustin-Louis Cauchy provided a proof in 1821. Both of these men were influenced by the goal of formalizing the analysis of functions and the work of Lagrange. The idea that continuous functions contained the intermediate value property has an earlier origin. Simon Stevin proved the intermediate value theorem for polynomials (using a cubic as an example) by providing an algorithm for constructing the decimal expansion of the solution. The algorithm subdivides the interval into 10 parts, producing an additional decimal digit at each step of the iteration. Before the formal definition of continuity was given, the intermediate value property was given as part of the definition of a continuous function.