CALCULUS HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Calculus is built upon two great ideas, the derivative, which examines slope of a curve and rates
of change, and the integral, which deals with sums, areas and volumes. Both of these ideas are the basis
for much of mathematics and for many accomplishments towards the this millennium. To study calculus,
one must have knowledge in algebra, trigonometry, geometry and other mathematical ideas.

The word calculus is a Latin word for stone or pebble. In ancient times, pebbles were used in
counting. Thus, calculus roughly means a method of calculation. This field of learning has become so
important that a sound knowledge of calculus Is essential to study and appreciate many other disciplines
such as biology, business, chemistry, economics, physics, engineering and architecture, to name a few.

The history of calculus began with Greeks, led by Achimedes (287-212 B.C.); he used the method
of exhaustion to find the area bounded by two curves. However, not much work was done until the
fifteenth century. Simon Stevin (1548-1620), a quartermaster general of the Dutch army, best known for
his contributions in the theory of decimal fractions, statics and hydrostatics, used calculus in his work.
Johann Kepler (1571-1630), a German astronomer and mathematician, applied integration procedures
to compute areas and volumes. In a book published in 1635, Bonaventura Cavaliera (1598-1647), an
Italian mathematician, presented his Method of Indivisibles – the same as integral calculus in principle.
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), an Italian astronomer and mathematician, John Wallis (1616-1703), an
English mathematician, and Christian Huygens (1629-1695), a Dutch physicist, mathematician and
astronomer, also made useful contributions to calculus. The idea of differentiation was conceived by
Pierre de Fermat (1607-1665) in 1629 while studying tangents to curves and optimum values of
functions. In spite of these developments, Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), an English mathematician and
natural philosopher, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), a German philosopher and
mathematician, are widely honored as the inventors of calculus.

There were other mathematicians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who participated
in the development of calculus, some of them were Jacob Bernoulli (1654-1705), Johann Bernoulli
(1667-1748), Leonhard Euler (1707-1783), and Joseph Lagrange (1736-1813). However, it was not until
the nineteenth century that calculus was given a sound foundation by such mathematicians as Bernhard
Bolzano (1781-1848), Augustin Cauchy (1789-1857), Karl Weierstrass (1815-1897) and Richard Dedkind
(1831-1916).

G. L’Hospital (1667-1748), a French nobleman published the first calculus book in 1684.
However, it was Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) who wrote the first comprehensive textbook on calculus. In
1910, Silvanus Thompson (1851-1916) wrote the book titled “Calculus Made Easy.”