WHAT IS THE CALCULATION?

The word calculation refers to the count or enumeration that is carried out by means of a mathematical execise. The calculation consists of an algorithm that allows to anticipate the result that will come from certain data that are known in advance.

The Calculus crystallized concepts and methods that humanity was trying to master for more than twenty centuries. A long list of people worked with the "infinitesimal" methods, but there was one that waited until the 17th century to have the social maturity, science and mathematics that allow us to construct the calculus that we use today.

Newton and Leibniz are considered the inventors of calculus but represent a link in a long chain initiated many centuries before. It was they who gave to the infinitesimal procedures of their immediate ancestors, Barrow and Fermat, the algorithmic unity and the necessary precision as a novel method and sufficient generality for its later development. These developments were elaborated from visions of men like Torricelli, Cavalieri, and Galileo; Or Kepler, Valerio, and Stevin. The scope of the initial operations with infinitesimals that these men achieved were also a direct result of the contributions of Oresme, Archimedes, and Eudoxus. Finally the work of the latter was inspired by mathematical and philosophical problems suggested by Aristotle, Plato, Thales of Miletus, Zeno and Pythagoras. In order to have the appropriate scientific and historical perspective, it must be recognized that one of the decisive previous contributions was the Analytical Geometry independently developed by Descartes and Fermat.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE CALCULATION

•Ancient civilizations

The advances made since each culture implemented its numerical system, are still used today. The algebraic advance of the Egyptians, resulted in the resolution to type equations. The correct implementation of the arithmetic rule of calculation, by the Indians, increased the mathematical knowledge, and the creation of irrational numbers, which also helped to solve systems of equations.

After this time, Greece ceases to be the evolutionary center of mathematics, social and political conflicts that were lived at that time away Greece from this science. By this situation another empire takes the reins of the mathematical advances.

The Differential Calculus originates in the seventeenth century when studies on the movement, that is to say, when studying the speed of the bodies when falling to the void as it changes from moment to moment; The speed at each instant must be calculated taking into account the distance that runs in an infinitesimally small time.

•The eighteenth century

For much of the eighteenth century Newton and Leibniz's disciples relied on their work to solve various problems of physics, astronomy and engineering, which allowed them, at the same time, to create new fields within mathematics. Thus, the Bernoulli brothers invented the calculus of variations and the French mathematician Monge the descriptive geometry. LaGrange, also French, gave a completely analytical treatment of mechanics, made contributions to the study of differential equations and number theory, and developed group theory. His contemporary Laplace wrote The Analytical Theory of Probabilities (1812) and the classic Celestial Mechanics (1799-1825), which earned him the nickname "the French Newton."

•The XIX and XX century

During the nineteenth and twentieth century scientific development and the creation of theoretical models based on calculation systems applicable in both mechanics and electromagnetism and radioactivity, etc. As well as in astronomy was impressive. Non-Euclidean geometries find application in theoretical models of astronomy and physics. The world ceases to be a set of infinite particles that move in an absolute space-time and becomes a configuration space or n-dimensional phase space that physically become consistent in the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, String theory, etc. Which completely changes the image of the physical world.

•Calculate in our days

At present, calculation in its more general sense, as a logical calculation interpreted mathematically as a binary system, and physically made material by the logic of electronic circuits, has acquired an impressive dimension and development by the computing power achieved by computers, properly computer machines. The capacity and speed of calculation of these machines does what humanly would be impossible: millions of operations per second.