There are few notable discoveries throughout man’s existence that the origins are concrete and the belief of the events that led up to and the discovery itself are without a doubt. Even the space race between the USSR and USA, has been debated since the minute Neil Armstrong took that small step off of Apollo 11, there has been debate. Even though it is the common belief that the Americans landed on the moon first, there are still some skeptics and debate behind it. This is a little different from the debate between who invented calculus because unlike the facts of the 1960’s that is a little more concrete than the facts from the 17th century. However there are historical references and books published by Leibniz and Newton that show when there works were published and how they invented calculus in their own ways.
The invention of calculus was incredibly complex and believe it or not the two best mathematicians of the time created it two completely different ways. Leibniz created calculus by thinking of abstract and infinite series. While on the other hand Newton created calculus that was based on more concrete ideas such as limits and reality.
Leibniz discovered his version of calculus between 1673 and 1676. He finally published his first book on differential calculus around 1684 and his explanation about integral calculus in 1686. During this time however Newton had already made the same claims in England, But due to Newton’s soft spookiness and resistance to publish when it came to his inventions he did not publish it till a few years after Leibniz published his works. Even though Newton did not publish any of his mathematical works in calculus there is documentation of him creating fluxional calculus in the mid-1660s. Since he never published his works till after Leibniz, all the credit was given to Leibniz for several years. Eventually wind got around that Newton discovered the “theory of fluxions” before just never published it, which ended up leading to allegations about plagiarism that were always pointed at Leibniz.
Those ideas really only arose because there were letters from Newton to other physicist and mathematicians with calculus such notations that Leibniz had available to him. So in simpler terms the ideas could have stemmed from Newton’s discoveries. But like I mentioned earlier Newton was very uptight with who he talked to and what he talked to them about trying to avoid circumstances of plagiarism like this one. But what exactly the letters contained are unknown, whether they were as simple as one exact theorem or the whole idea nobody knows. But due to Newton’s past of being reluctant to publish or share I believe that it was most likely a theorem or simple idea that was exchanged. However there is evidence that Newton and Leibniz sent letters back and forth talking about mathematics and calculus. But due to the information Leibniz published was different type of thinking than that of Newton so any information that they exchanged may have been helpful to say the least but not enough to write a dissertation about the revolutionary idea of integral and differential calculus.
However Newton was well respected in the world of physics and mathematics and had hundreds of educated followers while Leibniz only had one. Who actually wrote a letter to Newton and then when Newton spoke to him he denied ever writing the letter. In 1715 however only a couple months before his death the royal society claimed Sir Isaac Newton with the invention of calculus and Leibniz was convicted of plagiarism. However Liebniz name was tarnished for a very long time. To show how little support Liebniz actually did have, it was said by a reporter at his funeral that only one person attended his funeral, and it was his secretary. Eventually the controversy in the royal society was solved and Leibniz was no longer guilty of plagiarism and both gentlemen would go down in history as the co-inventers of calculus but this would come long after Leibniz’s death.
What is very unique about this is that Leibniz’s version of calculus is still quite practical and usable in today’s modern day math while Newton’s has fallen by the wayside. England however reacted differently to the rulings of the royal society and decided that it was an international plea of egotism why they gave credit to Leibniz. So in England they refused to teach any other math than that of Newton till the year of 1820. This argument has been debated since the start of calculus. Even though the complete truth of who created calculus is unknown, it can stated simply that both inventors were visionaries and it was incredible discovery by both Leibniz and Newton.
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