Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born on 1 July 1646 in Leipzig, Saxony, and died on 14 November 1716 in Hannover. While in Paris from 1672 to 1676 he developed the differential and integral calculus, first using the integral sign and differential notation in a manuscript of 21 November 1675, and by autumn 1676 had found the general rule for differentiating powers of x for both integral and fractional exponents. He published his differential calculus, using his own d notation, in the 1684 paper Nova Methodus pro Maximis et Minimis, and his integral calculus results in 1686. Isaac Newton had developed an equivalent method of fluxions earlier but had not published it, and after Newton came to believe Leibniz had taken his methods without credit, a Royal Society committee, whose 1713 report was in fact written by Newton himself, ruled in Newton's favour; Leibniz answered anonymously in his own 1713 to 1715 Charta volans. Modern historians hold that the two men developed calculus independently, and Leibniz's notation proved more influential for the calculus that followed than Newton's own.