Comments on: Who Invented Calculus: A WebQuest

By: Ideas for my 2009/2010 Calculus Project « Continuous Everywhere but Differentiable Nowhere

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 03:19:46 +0000

[...] Now that you know more about calculus, revisit the ideas you briefly encountered studying the history of calculus. Do a more thorough and scholarly investigation of Newton and Leibniz and write a short paper [...]

By: Will Farris

Will Farris — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:04:25 +0000

Asking who invented calculus is really like asking who wrote A Thousand and One Nights, or Cinderella, or the Old Testament: it is a compendium of ideas, stories, and applications that have accrued over time, set to print by more than 1 person, and have origins in the misty contrails of history. But for my money Leibniz is the man. His original works look more like what we see in calculus books of today than any other. Principia Mathematica is more a work of physics and because of his obscure invocation of fluxions got Berkeley’s underrobes in a bit of a wad. Leibniz with his monadic concepts of infinitesimal at least had more philosophical substance with which to analyze things. I still think that philosophers make much better pure mathematicians than physicists – take that Kaku!

By: samjshah

samjshah — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:41:06 +0000

I thought about that, and in fact one of my kids brought it up, but I wanted them to really learn about Newton and Leibniz. No reason you can’t add Archimedes in the mix though.

By: Joshua Zucker

Joshua Zucker — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:10:07 +0000

What about Archimedes?

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:08:11 +0000

How about -

Bell:Telephone as _____:Calculus

Although Bell is credited with the patent, there are numerous inventors who claimed they invited it first. Bell just had a better sense of PR. Given what you said about your goal of the project, I wonder if that title might steer your students toward the idea of who should get their name associated with Calculus without getting bogged down in a question you’re not crazy about.