Calculus, originally called infinitesimal calculus, is a mathematical discipline focused on limits, continuity, derivatives, integrals, and infinite series. Many elements of calculus appeared in ancient Greece, then in China and the Middle East, and still later again in medieval Europe and in India. Infinitesimal calculus was developed in the late 17th century by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz independently of each other. An argument over priority led to the Leibniz–Newton calculus controversy which continued until the death of Leibniz in 1716. The development of calculus and its uses within the sciences have continued to the present.
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History of calculus in the context of Leibniz–Newton calculus controversy
In the history of calculus, the calculus controversy (German: Prioritätsstreit, lit. 'priority dispute') was an argument between mathematicians Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz over who had first invented calculus. The question was a major intellectual controversy, beginning in 1699 and reaching its peak in 1712. Leibniz had published his work on calculus first, but Newton's supporters accused Leibniz of plagiarizing Newton's unpublished ideas. The modern consensus is that the two men independently developed their ideas. Their creation of calculus has been called arguably "the greatest advance in mathematics that had taken place since the time of Archimedes."
Newton stated he had begun working on a form of calculus (which he called "The Method of Fluxions and Infinite Series") in 1666, at the age of 23, but the work was not published until 1737 as a minor annotation in the back of one of his works decades later (a relevant Newton manuscript of October 1666 is now published among his mathematical papers). Gottfried Leibniz began working on his variant of calculus in 1674, and in 1684 published his first paper employing it, "Nova Methodus pro Maximis et Minimis". L'Hôpital published a text on Leibniz's calculus in 1696 (in which he recognized that Newton's Principia of 1687 was "nearly all about this calculus"). Meanwhile, Newton, though he explained his (geometrical) form of calculus in Section I of Book I of the Principia of 1687, did not explain his eventual fluxional notation for the calculus in print until 1693 (in part) and 1704 (in full).