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Daniel Moskovich
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Calculus, particularly the ideas of derivation and integration, is surely the mathematical idea which has changed history most in the last 400 years. The ability to study and quantify change and rate of change has been of key importance in science and engineering. Integration allowed calculation of volume and areas, and has been investigated (in a primitive form) for practical applications for millennea, starting with the Egyptian Moscow papyrus (c. 1820 BC). This includes in it the discovery and approximation of π, and with it the ability to estimate circumference and area of circles.