I didn't take this either.

Not being keen on writing exams about numbers you can't even see, I gave calculus a pass in high school. Some folk, however, think its peachy. And, always on the hunt for a good "I told you so" even if I can't understand it, check out this gem.

From an article in today's CBC's Technology and Science page comes news that calculus and its basic concepts was not devised by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz but rather comes from medieval India.

Members of the Kerala school, a group of heavy weight thinkers, came up with the concept of infinite series around 1350, years before Newton even toyed with the notion. Founded by Madhava of Sangamagrama, he and his fellow scholars worked in astronomy as well and developed methods to calculate the positon of the moon as it moved across the sky and to track the planets.

As is often the case, colonialism and a general European superiority either ignored or supressed the work and discoveries going on outside of their sandbox. But it is possible that through trade with Asia these mathematical discoveries filtered their way to Newton's England.

Here's the link to that CBC article. http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/08/14/calculus070814.html

Tommorow I'm back at African themed stuff again. I gotta have a stab at those nasty Belgians before I move on.