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CALCULUS PEBBLES

9/21/2018

1 Comment

 
Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz invented calculus in the mid-seventeenth century. Newton gave it the very tedious name  "the science of fluents and fluxions" and Leibniz was the one who gave it its modern name- it's not surprising that Newton's name didn't stick. Leibniz borrowed the word from Latin, where it referred to "a pebble used for counting", with a connection of solving mathematical problems. Because many of these pebbles were made out of limestone, we can further trace this back to the Latin word for "limestone", calx (making it related to words as diverse as causeway, recalcitrant, calcium, and chalk). This is from Greek khalix, also meaning "pebble" but nothing to do with counting this time. Origins of this are surprisingly obscure. It might be from a Proto-Indo-European word meaning "to break up", or it might have a non-IE Pre-Greek origin. Hopefully future resources will shed some light on that. As for now, it's all Greek to us.
1 Comment
erdogancevher
4/18/2022 04:50:29 pm

"MAHMUT 1074 Dictionary of Turkish Dialects" includes no similar word to "khalix". So, the root of "khalix" does NOT seem to be in Turkish.

But, when looked at NISANYAN's dictionary, the Arabic "Hall" well suits the context (calx-ulus):
https://www.etimolojiturkce.com/kelime/hal2

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    Hello! I'm Adam Aleksic, a senior studying government and linguistics at Harvard University, where I co-founded the Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Society. In addition to etymology, I also really enjoy trivia, politics, vexillology, geography, board games, conlanging, art history, and law. 
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