Calculus is the mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithmetic operations.
Colin Maclaurin was a Scottish mathematician who made important contributions to geometry and algebra. He is also known for being a child prodigy and holding the record for being the youngest professor. The Maclaurin series, a special case of the Taylor series, is named after him.
Sir Isaac Newton was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author who was described in his time as a natural philosopher. He was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment that followed. His pioneering book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, first published in 1687, consolidated many previous results and established classical mechanics. Newton also made seminal contributions to optics, and shares credit with German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for developing infinitesimal calculus.
In numerical analysis, Newton's method, also known as the Newton–Raphson method, named after Isaac Newton and Joseph Raphson, is a root-finding algorithm which produces successively better approximations to the roots of a real-valued function. The most basic version starts with a single-variable function f defined for a real variable x, the function's derivative f′, and an initial guess x0 for a root of f. If the function satisfies sufficient assumptions and the initial guess is close, then
In mathematics, differential calculus is a subfield of calculus that studies the rates at which quantities change. It is one of the two traditional divisions of calculus, the other being integral calculus—the study of the area beneath a curve.
Roger Cotes was an English mathematician, known for working closely with Isaac Newton by proofreading the second edition of his famous book, the Principia, before publication. He also invented the quadrature formulas known as Newton–Cotes formulas, and made a geometric argument that can be interpreted as a logarithmic version of Euler's formula. He was the first Plumian Professor at Cambridge University from 1707 until his death.
Method of Fluxions is a mathematical treatise by Sir Isaac Newton which served as the earliest written formulation of modern calculus. The book was completed in 1671, and published in 1736. Fluxion is Newton's term for a derivative. He originally developed the method at Woolsthorpe Manor during the closing of Cambridge during the Great Plague of London from 1665 to 1667, but did not choose to make his findings known. Gottfried Leibniz developed his form of calculus independently around 1673, 7 years after Newton had developed the basis for differential calculus, as seen in surviving documents like “the method of fluxions and fluents..." from 1666. Leibniz however published his discovery of differential calculus in 1684, nine years before Newton formally published his fluxion notation form of calculus in part during 1693. The calculus notation in use today is mostly that of Leibniz, although Newton's dot notation for differentiation for denoting derivatives with respect to time is still in current use throughout mechanics and circuit analysis.
The following article is part of a biography of Sir Isaac Newton, the English mathematician and scientist, author of the Principia. It portrays the years after Newton's birth in 1642, his education, as well as his early scientific contributions, before the writing of his main work, the Principia Mathematica, in 1685.
The Analyst is a book by George Berkeley. It was first published in 1734, first by J. Tonson (London), then by S. Fuller (Dublin). The "infidel mathematician" is believed to have been Edmond Halley, though others have speculated Sir Isaac Newton was intended.
In calculus, Leibniz's notation, named in honor of the 17th-century German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, uses the symbols dx and dy to represent infinitely small increments of x and y, respectively, just as Δx and Δy represent finite increments of x and y, respectively.
In mathematics, differential refers to several related notions derived from the early days of calculus, put on a rigorous footing, such as infinitesimal differences and the derivatives of functions.
Calculus, originally called infinitesimal calculus, is a mathematical discipline focused on limits, continuity, derivatives, integrals, and infinite series. Many elements of calculus appeared in ancient Greece, then in China and the Middle East, and still later again in medieval Europe and in India. Infinitesimal calculus was developed in the late 17th century by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz independently of each other. An argument over priority led to the Leibniz–Newton calculus controversy which continued until the death of Leibniz in 1716. The development of calculus and its uses within the sciences have continued to the present day.
In mathematics, a differential equation is an equation that relates one or more unknown functions and their derivatives. In applications, the functions generally represent physical quantities, the derivatives represent their rates of change, and the differential equation defines a relationship between the two. Such relations are common; therefore, differential equations play a prominent role in many disciplines including engineering, physics, economics, and biology.
René-François Walter de Sluse was a Walloon mathematician and churchman, who served as the canon of Liège and abbot of Amay.
In the history of calculus, the calculus controversy was an argument between the mathematicians Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz over who had first invented calculus. The question was a major intellectual controversy, which began simmering in 1699 and broke out in full force in 1711. Leibniz had published his work first, but Newton's supporters accused Leibniz of plagiarizing Newton's unpublished ideas. Leibniz died in disfavor in 1716 after his patron, the Elector Georg Ludwig of Hanover, became King George I of Great Britain in 1714. The modern consensus is that the two men developed their ideas independently.
In differential calculus, there is no single uniform notation for differentiation. Instead, various notations for the derivative of a function or variable have been proposed by various mathematicians. The usefulness of each notation varies with the context, and it is sometimes advantageous to use more than one notation in a given context. The most common notations for differentiation are listed below.
A timeline of calculus and mathematical analysis.
A fluxion is the instantaneous rate of change, or gradient, of a fluent at a given point. Fluxions were introduced by Isaac Newton to describe his form of a time derivative. Newton introduced the concept in 1665 and detailed them in his mathematical treatise, Method of Fluxions. Fluxions and fluents made up Newton's early calculus.
Most of the terms listed in Wikipedia glossaries are already defined and explained within Wikipedia itself. However, glossaries like this one are useful for looking up, comparing and reviewing large numbers of terms together. You can help enhance this page by adding new terms or writing definitions for existing ones.
