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The Birth of Calculus (1986) [video]

by gauthamshankar on 4/27/20, 12:40 PM with 12 comments

  • by Strilanc on 4/27/20, 8:39 PM

    The really interesting thing about this video, to me, is the explanation of how tangents were calculated before calculus. You can see how awkward it would have been to do things that way, and how it would have been difficult to realize they was something far far easier.

  • by acqq on 4/27/20, 9:31 PM

    Wonderful. Some very interesting and very precise historical details.

    I can only be sad to imagine how something on that subject would be produced today (with so much sound and visual effects and removing the substance to be practically unwatchable). They just don't make them like that anymore, sadly.

    Also good to be remembered that a lot of work of Leibniz was in some way inspired or motivated by, or related to his work on his calculating machine:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepped_reckoner

  • by 29athrowaway on 4/27/20, 8:54 PM

    People often know about Isaac Newton but not Isaac Barrow.

    Or the greatest of all, the doctor that rediscovered integration in 1994. https://fliptomato.wordpress.com/2007/03/19/medical-research...

  • by Vysero on 4/27/20, 10:31 PM

    The difference between Newton and Leibniz seems remarkably similar to the difference between say: Einstein and Feynman. One seems to be discovering the maths while the other seems to be forging it. Personally, I prefer and understand the forged methodology better myself, but then again I have always been a tinkerer.

  • by z991 on 4/27/20, 9:31 PM

  • by melling on 4/27/20, 10:27 PM

    Are the original notebooks online?