Neither Newton nor Liebniz invented calculus single-handedly as is often described. There was a lot of precursor work. Newton for example credited the idea of the derivative to Fermat’s prior work on drawing tangent lines (which itself was a generalization of ancient Greek ideas about tangents for conic sections). Others also discussed similar notions before Newton and Liebniz such as the mean speed theorem. After both of them, a lot of work still needed to be done to make calculus useful. The sections of calculus which Newton and Liebniz did is only about half of what is covered in a normal into calc class today.
A better example might be Shannon’s development of information theory which really did have almost no precursors and did leap from his brow fully formed like Athena.
Neither Newton nor Liebniz invented calculus single-handedly as is often described. There was a lot of precursor work. Newton for example credited the idea of the derivative to Fermat’s prior work on drawing tangent lines (which itself was a generalization of ancient Greek ideas about tangents for conic sections). Others also discussed similar notions before Newton and Liebniz such as the mean speed theorem. After both of them, a lot of work still needed to be done to make calculus useful. The sections of calculus which Newton and Liebniz did is only about half of what is covered in a normal into calc class today.
A better example might be Shannon’s development of information theory which really did have almost no precursors and did leap from his brow fully formed like Athena.