Faà di Bruno's formula is an identity in mathematics generalizing the chain rule to higher derivatives. It is named after Francesco Faà di Bruno , although he was not the first to state or prove the formula. In 1800, more than 50 years before Faà di Bruno, the French mathematician Louis François Antoine Arbogast had stated the formula in a calculus textbook, which is considered to be the first published reference on the subject. Perhaps the most well-known form of Faà di Bruno's formula says that