Thomas OtterI’m not a mathematician, not even by the wildest stretch of imagination. I reckon I have about another 3 years before the kids homework will defeat me. However, I’m a big fan of the history of mathematics and science; Riemann conjecture, Nash equilibrium, Gauss and number theory, Mandelbrot and so on. I’m a sucker for layman books on maths and science history, just don’t ask me to factorise, solving where X is a real number.
One of the great mathematical rivalries was between Newton and Leibniz over who came up with Calculus first. It turns out that they were arguing over second.
A Palimpsest rediscovered showed that Archimedes had a grasp of the principles of calculus 2000 years before either Newton or Leibniz. You can read more about the discovery here.
I wonder how many other inventions and discoveries that we hold so dear are in fact rediscoveries? Palimpsests do make prior art literature reviews rather difficult.
(photo from the cc collection of lambageek, thanks)
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Category: history Tags: archimedes, leibniz, maths, newton
