Talk:History of calculus

What are some sources for the following:

In 1704 an anonymous pamphlet, later determined to have been written by Leibniz, accused Newton of having plagiarised Leibniz' work. That claim is easily refuted as there is ample evidence to show that Newton commenced work on the calculus long before Leibniz can possibly have done. However, the resulting controversy led to suggestions that Leibniz may not have invented the calculus independently as he claimed, but may have been influenced by reading copies of Newton's early manuscripts. This claim is not so easily dismissed and there is in fact considerable circumstantial evidence to support it. Leibniz was not known at the time for his probity, and later admitted to falsifying the dates on certain of his manuscripts in an effort to bolster his claims. Furthermore, a copy of one of Newton's very early manuscripts with annotations by Leibniz was found among Leibniz' papers after his death, although the exact date when Leibniz first acquired this is unknown.

None of this is mentioned on the St. Andrews bio for Leibniz. The article, as it currently stands, is very pro-Newton and very POV. Some mention of Newton's own forged letters and so forth should be included. Also, some mention of Newton's abuse of his power as president of the Royal society should mentioned: he appointed the committee to investigate the issue of priority and then wrote the final report himself (anonymously). --Chan-Ho Suh 07:51, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)

The origin of all that was a large piece of public domain text copied into the calculus article (from a book about 100 years old). If we are going to mention the priority quarrel, someone should look into more current scholarship. I'm not sure it is right to imply that it is of no interest, and is just 'antiquarianism'. It tends to show that the academic conventions of fair dealing were not in place, at that time. Charles Matthews 08:58, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

From Infinitesimal Calculus

Content from former Infinitesimal calculus moved into History of Calculus. Peter Grey 21:32, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Newton, Leibniz Controversy

I tried to edit and reorganize this article to be a little cleaner. Also, I deleted some statements about the Newton - Leibniz controversy that I feel were dubious. I am not the foremost expert on this subject, but I do know some about it. Unfortunately, much of what is left is rather vague and uninformative. If someone has some good sources on this subject, please provide them! If people can provide good sources for some of the statements I deleted, by all means, reinsert them! Grokmoo 05:05, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Egypt

The volume of a pyramid and the area of a hemi-sphere are mentioned in an Egyptian

text, well before the Greeks.