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That's not surprising. Voltaire's caricature of Leibniz was politically motivated too, or religious, which was all tangled together during the enlightenment. Ba

That's not surprising. Voltaire's caricature of Leibniz was politically motivated too, or religious, which was all tangled together during the enlightenment. Basically a liberal/atheist criticizing a conservative/religious thinker. And the Leibniz/Newton debate seems to me to have been primarily political too, dividing neatly on national lines. Politics is always with us, it seems. Regardless of who came first, Leibniz's work on calculus was excellent. He knew the chain rule, product and quotient rule, linearity, and how to differentiate powers of x; he defined both integration and differentiation and was aware of (but did not prove) the fundamental theorem of calculus (that integration and differentiation are opposites) We still use his notation today: sigma f(x) dx for integration, and dx/dy for differentiation. In fact, even the word for function, in the sense "f is a function of x", seems original to Leibniz and came directly out of his work on calculus. Leibniz could walk into a classroom today and lecture on his calculus and it wouldn't look much different than a modern Intro to Calculus class. If it hadn't been for the climate of German/English intellectual rivalry it wouldn't have even been an issue. https://www.maa.org/book/export/html/641727 https://www.maa.org/book/export/html/641727

nanna 8y ago
Wish I understood calculus as well as you obviously do. I guess the one thing I'd add is that it was a far broader art than just for maths. The classroom today would be pretty surprised to hear how its continuous with metaphysics too. Regarding Leibniz/Newton, not exactly the case that it divided on national lines, because the lines didn't exist in the same way as today. He worked as archivist for the Elector of Hanover George Ludwig, who would be brought over to the UK to become King George I towards the end of Leibniz's life. To Leibniz's consternation, George I would leave him behind in Hanover, where he would die. Lots of theories about why this was the case, but one reason is that Newton and his supporters via the Royal Academy ensured he wouldn't be brought over. Their spat (with Clarke as Newton's mouthpiece) was in the general context of that, hence its rancorous tone. Norbert Wiener at least considered the two centuries of suppression of Leibniz and his calculus and its superior notation in Britain to have held back the British and American sciences.
antidesitter 8y ago
Minor correction: Voltaire was a deist, not an atheist.

nanna 8y ago

Wish I understood calculus as well as you obviously do. I guess the one thing I'd add is that it was a far broader art than just for maths. The classroom today would be pretty surprised to hear how its continuous with metaphysics too. Regarding Leibniz/Newton, not exactly the case that it divided on national lines, because the lines didn't exist in the same way as today. He worked as archivist for the Elector of Hanover George Ludwig, who would be brought over to the UK to become King George I towards the end of Leibniz's life. To Leibniz's consternation, George I would leave him behind in Hanover, where he would die. Lots of theories about why this was the case, but one reason is that Newton and his supporters via the Royal Academy ensured he wouldn't be brought over. Their spat (with Clarke as Newton's mouthpiece) was in the general context of that, hence its rancorous tone. Norbert Wiener at least considered the two centuries of suppression of Leibniz and his calculus and its superior notation in Britain to have held back the British and American sciences.

antidesitter 8y ago

Minor correction: Voltaire was a deist, not an atheist.