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A comment on Calculus for Beginners and Artists (2003). Parent comment

Re:Calculus for Beginners and Artists (2003) by JoelMcCracken on Sunday July 14, 2019 @12:36PM (#20434336)
A while back I was trying to under why some things are called algebras and others calculus. The answer I got is that the term calculus is related to the introduction/reduction of variables or symbols, whereas an algebra is manipulation of existing symbols.
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Re:Calculus for Beginners and Artists (2003) by mruts on Sunday July 14, 2019 @01:37PM (#20434655)
I always thought it related to continuous variables and the highly useful concept of the infinitesimal. But maybe that definition works as well.
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Re:Calculus for Beginners and Artists (2003) by User23 on Sunday July 14, 2019 @03:30PM (#20435420)
I thought it was just yet another historical and linguistic oddity in English.
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Re:Calculus for Beginners and Artists (2003) by mruts on Sunday July 14, 2019 @04:07PM (#20435655)
Calculus means "stone" in Latin. I suspect the relationship between stones and counting is why we use it so much (though I'm not an expert on how/why Romans used stones).
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