What is Calculus? A definition found of calculus in a dictionary was this; a method of computation or calculation in a special notation (as of logic or symbolic logic). The historical perspective of calculus is that people had a problem in finding areas and finding tangent lines. The thing that was discovered to figure these problems out was calculus. Some influential people in the development of calculus were Isaac Newton (1642-1727), and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716). Isaac Newton is considered on of the most influential men in the development of calculus. Newton at first kept all his discoveries to himself. He feared that people would not accept his w