Newtonian calculus (fluxions)
Cálculo infinitesimal de Newton (fluxiones)
- Date
- 1665-1666 · confidence medium
- Place
- Woolsthorpe and Cambridge, England
- Credited to
- Isaac Newton
- People
- 👤 Isaac Newton1642–1727
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
A general method of differentiation and integration based on quantities that flow over time, with the fundamental theorem relating both operations, power series (the generalised binomial) and application to mechanics and gravitation.
Newton developed it in 1665-1666 but published it late (1704, 1736); Leibniz invented it independently in 1675 and published first (1684). The priority dispute pitted the Royal Society against continental mathematics for a century.
What it led to
- Newtonian mechanics
- differential equations
- mathematical analysis
- mathematical physics
Built on
- Binomial theorem and coefficient trianglec. 1000
- Cavalieri's indivisibles
- Fermat's and Barrow's tangents
- Wallis series
Made possible
- Newton polynomialc. 1676
- celestial mechanics
- modern engineering
- ballistics