Developing the Calculus

Author/Creator

Author/Creator ORCID

Date

2006

Department

Mathematics

Program

Bachelor's Degree

Citation of Original Publication

Rights

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Abstract

Beginning as early as 400 B.C., mathematicians used the concept of limit, which is essential to the theory of the branch of mathematics that is today known as Calculus, to aid them in determining areas. While Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz are credited as being the co-inventors of the subject, it is necessary to view the development of Calculus as the work of many mathematicians, including Joseph Louis Lagrange, Augustin-Louis Cauchy, Bernhard Riemann, and many others. Newton and Leibniz were the first to axiomatically define the subject; others would improve upon their work in order to build the subject of Calculus to be that which it is today.