Isaac Newton is considered by many to be one of the most influential men in human history. He was mathematician, physicist, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist and theologian. Isaac Newton was one of the greatest mathematicians and physics during the 17th century. He mainly used mathematics as a researching tool for astronomy and physics. He was one of the last mathematicians who did his research in the name of God. Isaac Newton contributed a lot in Mathematics. One of Newton's most important papers laid the foundation for calculus. He pioneered a revolutionary new approach to mathematics which is infinitesimal calculus. Calculus is an extension of Descartes' analytic geometry. By using the calculus, you can calculate the area of shapes which are not enclosed with lines …show more content…
Intuitively, the slope at a particular point can be approximated by taking the average slope of ever smaller segments of the curve. As the segment of the curve being considered approaches zero in size, then the calculation of the slope approaches close and closer to the exact slope at a point. One of his contributions is the contemporary problems in analytical geometry of drawing tangents to curves (differentiation) and defining areas bounded by curves (integration). Newton calculated a derivative function which gives the slope at any point of a function f(x). Differential calculus or differentiation is the process of calculating the slope or derivative of a curve or function. For example, the derivative of a straight line of the type f(x) = 4x is just 4; the derivative of a squared function f(x) = x2 is 2x; the derivative of cubic function f(x) = x3 is 3x2. After that it is easy to calculate the slope at any particular point on that curve. We just need to insert the value for x. The two main operations of calculus is the opposite of differentiation which is