Isaac Newton, Progress, and Patents

In my physics recitation class today, our recitation leader briefly digressed from the material at hand to discuss the history of differential calculus and the conflict between Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz. Basically, Newton claimed to have invented differential calculus first (although, as with any other "invention", neither can truly claim to have invented calculus from scratch as they were building on the work of mathematicians before them (and I don't just mean 1 + 1 = 2 — I mean things like infinite series and tangent lines)), but as he kept his work secret for decades, he ended up publishing his work on calculus after Leibniz published his work. While both were initially on good terms, as Newton became more possessive of his own work and convinced of his own originality, the debate became progressively more heated, with Newton and his supporters accusing Leibniz of plagiarism. Follow the jump to read more.
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