Contraband Mathematics: A Documentary Review of the Resources Available to George Green at the Nottingham Subscription Library 1823–1828.

This paper will summarize the Newton-Leibniz controversy and how it relates to Green's [24] paper, Green's background and the influence of John Toplis, and the methods we used in exploring the Nottingham Subscription Library archives. Newton and Leibniz each claimed to have discovered calculus first, with Newton publicly accusing Leibniz of copying his ideas in 1711, although Leibniz managed to prevent criminal charges being brought against him (Sastry, [45]). The inclusion of Cavendish suggests very strongly that Green was able to understand I both i Newtonian fluxions and Leibnizian calculus, as well as the variational calculus of Lagrange. Green's use of European calculus in his 1828 essay signaled a bigger change in British mathematics away from Newton's fluxion methods, embracing European calculus to the ultimate benefit of the British mathematical and scientific communities. [Extracted from the article]