Math Is Fun Forum

ShivamS

Member

Registered: 2011-02-07

Posts: 3,648

Calculus Origin

I have a question about limits. I am taking a University course at Yale on Vectors and Calculus and I consider my self to be very well versed at limits, derivatives etc. However, I still have one question. Who created Calculus? We are all aware of Newton being the main "creator". But what about Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz?

bobbym

bumpkin

From: Bumpkinland

Registered: 2009-04-12

Posts: 109,606

Re: Calculus Origin

Historically, it is agreed that both get the credit. Newton seems to have discovered it prior to Leibniz but did not publish. Less well known, is that earlier mathematicians like Fermat were discovering portions of it. Even Johannes Kepler solved an integration by stuffing rectangles under a curve and imagining what would happen if there were an infinite number of rectangles that were infinitely small. The beginnings of integral calculus.

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In mathematics, you don't understand things. You just get used to them.
If it ain't broke, fix it until it is.
Always satisfy the Prime Directive of getting the right answer above all else.

zetafunc.

Guest

Re: Calculus Origin

What a coincidence... I am doing a project on exactly this (Newton vs Leibniz)!

anonimnystefy

Real Member

From: Harlan's World

Registered: 2011-05-23

Posts: 16,049

Re: Calculus Origin

The idea about approximating a circles circumference/area with inscribed and described perfect polygons is also from calculus, but was first used in ancient Greece.

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