One of the most heated controversies in the early 18th century was between two of the brightest minds of the age, Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz. Their conflict was over a simple matter of priority - which one of them invented calculus? Newton claimed that he invented it first, and given his personality, this became an all-consuming matter for him. In their lifetimes, neither one backed down, although indications are that each developed it independently.
(Additionally, neither seemed to acknowledge that Indian mathematicians beat them to a number of calculus concepts by several centuries. The contributions of India to mathematics have been tragically overlooked. But I digress.)
However, Discover magazine's NCBI ROFL blog notes that at least one person has never heard of this controversy. In this paper, published in 1994, the author not only took credit for discovering how to determine the area under a curve, but also named it for his/herself. Here's the abstract:
OBJECTIVE: To develop a mathematical model for the determination of total areas under curves from various metabolic studies. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: In Tai’s Model, the total area under a curve is computed by dividing the area under the curve between two designated values on the X-axis (abscissas) into small segments (rectangles and triangles) whose areas can be accurately calculated from their respective geometrical formulas. The total sum of these individual areas thus represents the total area under the curve.
What's even more interesting about this is, as one commenter to the blog points out, this is a heavily cited paper. As of the time of this writing, Scholar notes that it's been cited 147 times. Should we be scared that doctors don't know math?
I don't think so. I don't have access to all of those papers, but given that several replies were to this paper were published noting that this is just a restatement of the trapezoidal rule, I'm willing to bet that a number of the citations to "Tai's Model" are made in jest when a team uses calculus. This is similar to a joke citation in the legal field. When matters of personal jurisdiction arise in a case, lawyers and judges often cite the case United States ex rel. Gerald Mayo v. Satan and His Staff. Because, well, it's funny to do so.
That said, I'm pretty sure that when the zombie apocalypse comes and Newton and Leibniz rise from the grave, they are not going to be happy.
(Thanks to Paul Hsieh for the link)
