Calculus
Knowledge of the calculus is often regarded as the dividing line between amateur and professional scientists. Calculus is regarded, in its own right, as one of the most beautiful creations of the human mind, comparable in its magnificence with the masterworks of Shakespeare, Mozart, Rembrandt, and Michelangelo. The invention of calculus is usually credited to Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the 17th century. Some of the germinal ideas can, however, be traced back to Archimedes in the third century BC. Archimedes exploited the notion of adding up an infinite number of infinitesimal elements in order to determine areas and volumes of geometrical figures. We have already mentioned how he calculated the value of
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