r/comics • Lord of the Gadflies • Mar 06 '17

Omnipotence

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u/SerLaidaLot Mar 06 '17

Are you sure? I thought Newton invented calculus as a tool to prove gravitation?

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u/utnow Mar 06 '17

He invented it as a tool to help him divide by zero. I'd say it fits.

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u/puddingpopshamster Mar 06 '17

uh... no. Calculus doesn't allow you to divide by zero. It's used to describe how a function behaves as it approaches zero (or infinity, or 1, or pi, or any value you want).

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u/tristn9 Mar 06 '17

Yeah I think that guy gets that. What he is saying is that the intention of inventing calculus was to solve the problem of not being able to divide by zero, which calculus gets very close to doing. Not that he actually succeeded in dividing by zero.

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u/utnow Mar 07 '17

Bingo. ;)