Their values and goals were different, one continental and the other quintessentially British. His motivation was to find a metaphysical explanation for change. Leibniz, in contrast, investigated the inner nature of tangents.
Calculus for Newton was descriptive, a tool for understanding phenomena. Newton developed his version of calculus in response to issues he perceived pertaining to his physics. Following their innovation, it came to mean the study of infinitesimal differentiation and integration. Prior to the Leibniz-Newton inventions, the word “calculus” referred generically to any type of mathematics. The simple definition of a derivative follows from the equation for a straight line, y = mx + b where b is the y-intercept, x is the independent variable. Currently it is generally held that the two great theoreticians developed their different but closely related systems independently. At various times each of these profound thinkers accused the other of stealing his work.
ISAAC NEWTON PICTURES FULL
It was widely believed that Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) should receive full credit for this great innovation, and the controversy degenerated into interminable discussions of who said or wrote what in which year. The derivative f′(x) of a curve at a point is the slope (rise over run) of the line tangent to that curve at that point.įor years, an intense controversy obscured the matter. This theoretical edifice is part of the picture, but from our present standpoint, an equally important contribution was Newton’s invention of calculus. In the Principia Mathematica, a hefty three-volume work, the author stated his laws of motion and from Johannes Kepler’s empirical Laws of Planetary Motion, Newton derived his law of universal gravitation. Newton’s life and works were diverse and multifaceted. Einstein’s work early in the following century re-ordered our understanding of large-scale physics, but in the everyday space-time environment, Newton’s formulations endure. This perspective was widely accepted as the absolute and final truth until the Michelson-Morley Experiment 200 years later deconstructed that synthesis.
It contains laws of motion and universal gravitation, basically asserting that the same laws apply both to small objects on the surface of the earth and to all bodies in space including the earth. Mathematica (“Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy”), published in 1687. Isaac Newton’s great work, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia