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Democritus(Greek mathematician)
- use of infinitesimals
- the division of objects into an infinite
number of cross-sections
Archimedes
- develop the idea of infinitesimals
- inventing heuristic methods which
resemble modern day concepts
Medievel Alhazen (middle east)
- derived a formula for the sum of fourth
powers
- He used the results to carry out what
would now be called an integration, where
the formulas for the sums of integral
squares and fourth powers allowed him to
calculate the volume of a paraboloid.
Modern times
Newton and Leibniz are two great figures who are credited with the creation of calculus independently.
Both Newton and Leibniz are given credit for independently developing the basics of calculus. It is
Leibniz, however, who is credited with giving the new discipline the name it is known by today:
"calculus". Newton's name for it was "the science of fluents and fluxions".
The work of both Newton and Leibniz is reflected in the notation used today. Newton introduced the
notation f for the derivative of a function f. Leibniz introduced the symbol ∫ for the integral and wrote
the derivative of a function y of the variable x as dy/dx both of which are still in use.
Before newton and Leibniz independently came up the The fundamental theorem of calculus there were
many mathematician that came before them that paved the way for both newton and Leibniz work.
The foundations for the discovery of the integral were first laid by Cavalieri, an Italian Mathematician, in
around 1635. Cavalieri’s work centered around the observation that a curve can be considered to be
sketched by a moving point and an area to be sketched by a moving line.
John Wallis’ contribution to the integral calculus was to derive an algebraic law for integration that
alleviated the necessity of going through such analysis for each curve. Through examining the
relationship between a function and the function that describes its area (henceforth referred to as the
area-function), he was able to derive an algebraic law for determining area-functions.
One of the first major uses of infinite series in the development of calculus came from Pierre De
Fermat’s method of integration. Though previous methods of integration had used the notion of infinite
lines describing an area, Fermat was the first to use infinite series in his methodology.
Wallis and Fermat's work had laid the groundwork for the modern concept of the integral. However,
what Fermat and Wallis had failed to recognize was the relationship between the differential and the
integral. That idea would be developed simultaneously by two men: Newton and Leibniz. This would
later be known as the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus.