Gottfried Leibniz · Mathematics

The Invention of the Calculus

How Leibniz, independently of Newton, discovered the calculus - a method for handling the infinitely small, taming the twin problems of tangents and areas with a single symbolic machinery.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned how Leibniz invented the calculus by reasoning with infinitesimals - the differential dx and the integral ∫ . Explain what problems the calculus solved and what an infinitesimal is supposed to be.

Leads to Newton.

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