Calculus was independently developed in the late 17th century by two prominent mathematicians: Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Newton began his work in the mid-1660s and wrote papers on calculus as early as 1669, though he did not publish them immediately. Leibniz developed his version in the mid-1670s and published his work in 1684. This led to a famous controversy over who invented calculus first, with Newton accusing Leibniz of plagiarism, but historical evidence shows they arrived at their discoveries independently

. Newton applied calculus primarily to physics and called his method "the science of fluxions," while Leibniz developed much of the notation used in calculus today and gave the discipline its name. Both made key contributions such as the fundamental theorem of calculus, which links differentiation and integration as inverse processes

. Before Newton and Leibniz, many mathematicians contributed ideas related to calculus, including ancient Greeks like Archimedes who developed methods akin to integration, and mathematicians in the Middle East and India who explored related concepts. However, the formal system of calculus as a unified mathematical discipline is credited to Newton and Leibniz

. In summary, calculus was created independently by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the 17th century, building on centuries of prior mathematical ideas but formalizing the concepts of differentiation and integration as we know them today