ABSTRACT
Differentiation was conceived in the 17th century by both Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, independently. At that time, neither man knew the other had come to the same conclusion, but when they found out they quarreled the rest of their lives about who was first. Differentiation is extremely useful because it quantifies the rate of change of a function, that is, how fast it changes. The derivative plays an important role in Economics, Business and Science, for example it is used to calculate velocity and acceleration, and to estimate the rate of population growth. Differentiation is extremely useful because it quantifies the rate of change of a function, that is, how fast it changes. When the rate of change is zero, the function is either at a maximum or a minimum. In fact functions are so important that they are the heart of Math.
