So the last shall be first: New insight on the origins of Leibniz and Newton's calculus war

Newton and Leibniz both independently created the calculus. That is the consensus nowadays. For them, however, it wasn't that clear at the beggining of the XVIIIth century. They maintained a sour controversy that became known as the calculus war, probably the greatest clash in the history of science. While it is accepted the debate started when Fatio de Duillier (Newton's assistant) publicy accused Leibniz of plagiarism in 1699, we can find proofs of its origins years before in an interchange of letters between Leibniz and Huygens.

Speaker: Miguel Palomo, RCC Fellow, Visiting Researcher at the Department of Philosophy at Harvard University