Calculus allowed Newton to combine all these equations into one grand set of laws—laws that applied in all cases, under all conditions. For the first time, science could see the universal laws that underlie all of these little half laws. Even though mathematicians knew that calculus was deeply flawed—thanks to the mathematics of zero and infinity—they quickly embraced the new mathematical tools. For the truth is, nature doesn’t speak in ordinary equations. It speaks in differential equations, and calculus is the tool that you need to pose and solve these differential equations.
