the.com/calculus
the math that turns 'how fast is everything changing' into a single elegant answer
means A branch of mathematics that studies continuous change, using derivatives to measure rates and integrals to accumulate quantities (also, in medicine, a hard stony mass like a kidney stone).
from From Latin 'calculus,' meaning 'small pebble' — the little stones the Romans slid across counting boards to do arithmetic. The diminutive of 'calx' (limestone, chalk), it gave us 'calculate' (literally, to reckon with pebbles), and the medical sense lingers in the same image: a tiny hard stone, only this time forming in the body. Newton and Leibniz didn't call their new mathematics 'calculus' at first; the name attached later, a quiet nod to those ancient reckoning stones.
- name origin
- Latin for pebble, used for counting
- twin inventors
- Newton and Leibniz feuded bitterly over credit
- infinitesimals
- Once called ghosts of departed quantities
- everywhere
- Powers physics, economics, and rocket trajectories
- dental cousin
- Hardened plaque on teeth shares the name
newton-leibniz controversy — 17th century dispute over who invented calculus first, nearly split the scientific community
leibniz notation — the dy/dx symbol system still used in calculus today, credited to gottfried leibniz 1675
newton's fluxions — newton's version of calculus developed 1665-1666, used dot notation instead of leibniz's