6. Newton’s personality led to lengthy disputes with fellow mathematicians
Newton was possessed with a lifelong suspicion that the credit for his work and his discoveries would be stolen by others, both of his contemporaries and those who came later. The obsession led him into a controversy over the development of calculus beginning in 1699, which by 1711 had grown to include claims of plagiarism leveled by Newton toward Gottfried Leibniz. Newton claimed that Leibniz had stolen his work which he began in 1666, but which he did not publish until much later. Leibniz published his work beginning in 1684. Newton’s earlier work did not become published until after his death. The controversy led to Leibniz becoming something of a pariah in the last decade of his life.
Newton created the controversy and used the followers of his version to discredit Leibniz. The controversy was entirely based on Newton’s fear that work similar to his had been arrived at independently and that he was thus not the greatest mathematical mind of his age. The Royal Society established a committee to independently investigate the controversy in 1713, which listened to Newton’s assertions without offering Leibniz an opportunity to present his version, finding in favor of Newton late that year. Newton later claimed that the controversy wasn’t about his fame, which he shunned, but was based instead on his reputation for honesty. In 1716 Leibniz died, and in the twentieth century, most historians agree that the two mathematicians arrived at their discoveries independently.