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Calculus, originally called infinitesimal calculus, is a mathematical discipline focused on limits, continuity, derivatives, integrals, and infinite series.Many elements of calculus appeared in ancient Greece, then in China and the Middle East, and still later again in medieval Europe and in India.
John Wallis (/ ˈ w ɒ l ɪ s /; [2] Latin: Wallisius; 3 December [O.S. 23 November] 1616 – 8 November [O.S. 28 October] 1703) was an English clergyman and mathematician, who is given partial credit for the development of infinitesimal calculus. Between 1643 and 1689 Wallis served as chief cryptographer for Parliament and, later, the royal ...
In the history of calculus, the calculus controversy (German: Prioritätsstreit, lit. 'priority dispute') was an argument between the mathematicians Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz over who had first invented calculus. The question was a major intellectual controversy, which began simmering in 1699 and broke out in full force in 1711.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; [a] 1 July 1646 [O.S. 21 June] – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in addition to many other branches of mathematics, such as binary arithmetic and statistics.
He founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made influential discoveries in many other branches of mathematics, such as analytic number theory, complex analysis, and infinitesimal calculus. He also introduced much of modern mathematical terminology and notation, including the notion of a mathematical function. [6]
Calculus is the mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithmetic operations. Originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the calculus of infinitesimals", it has two major branches, differential calculus and integral calculus.
Pierre de Fermat (/ f ɜːr ˈ m ɑː /; [2] French: [pjɛʁ də fɛʁma]; 17 August 1601 [a] – 12 January 1665) was a French mathematician who is given credit for early developments that led to infinitesimal calculus, including his technique of adequality.
Descartes's work provided the basis for the calculus developed by Leibniz and Newton, who applied the infinitesimal calculus to the tangent line problem, thus permitting the evolution of that branch of modern mathematics. [141] His rule of signs is also a commonly used method to determine the number of positive and negative roots of a polynomial.