Infinite Powers: The Story of Calculus - The Language of the Universe

by Steven H. Strogatz

The pivotal moment in the story of calculus occurred in the middle of the seventeenth century when the mysteries of curves, motion, and change collided on a two-dimensional grid, the xy plane of Fermat and Descartes. Back then, Fermat and Descartes had no idea what a versatile tool they’d created. They intended the xy plane as a tool for pure mathematics. Yet from the start, it too was a crossroads of sorts, a place where equations met curves, algebra met geometry, and the mathematics of the East met that of the West. Then, in the next generation, Isaac Newton built on their work as well as on the work of Galileo and Kepler and brought geometry and physics together in a great synthesis. Newton’s spark set off the fire that lit the Enlightenment and caused a revolution in Western science and mathematics.