eli5: What do people mean when they say “Newton invented calculus”?

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I can’t seem to wrap my head around the fact that math is invented? Maybe he came up with the symbols of integration and derivation, but these are phenomena, no? We’re just representing it in a “language” that makes sense. I’ve also heard people say that we may need “new math” to discover/explain new phenomena. What does that mean?

Edit: Thank you for all the responses. Making so much more sense now!

In: Mathematics

43 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

In math and science, some people use the word “invented” but scientists usually say “discovered” Newton didn’t invent the fact increasing force increases acceleration, he discovered the correlation. Same thing for calculus or any type of math; they didn’t invent the phenomena, but they used they tested the phenomena and recorded results until they came up with the terms, variables, correlations, equations, etc.

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