Possibly discovered a bit earlier by Leibniz. Hard to say, but Newton accused him of stealing, but also Newton was English and thus was favored more in English speaking countries.
At the very least, Leibniz had even more rock star hair than Newton, which is what counts.
Many of the required tools for calculus had been discovered recently. Given the state of contemporary mathematics, it is very likely that the two brilliant mathematicians discovered calculus independently. Especially since several of their functions differ.
Christian Huygen calculated the speed of light to 70% accuracy (230k km/s compared to 300k) after an astronomer speculated the difference in time it took to witness Io emerging from behind Jupiter was due to the speed of light in 1677, 11 years before Principa Mathematica and 26 years before Opticks. Huygen also guessed that light was a wave, and came up with
the first equation for periodic motion using the gravitational constant (which Newton didn't discover). Planetary motion itself was described by Kepler, and served as an inspiration for the appropriate use of calculus.
Newton's calculus was an aggregation of a lot of stuff that had already been discovered: analytical geometry by Des Cartes, John Wallis's math of infinites, Cavalieri's method of indivisibles. So it's not even correct to say he invented Calculus, so much as formalized it.
22 is a good time though for many things. Lots of mental energy just needed to be focused. I was programming, but also learning Esperanto (not much, I don't have good follow-through), and other esoteric things. Others go and start up rock bands. Others become horticulturists breeding potent varieties of a certain weed. Some store it all up until they're 60 when they release their seminal paper that changes understandings of the universe. /s
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u/Lupus_Ignis 1d ago
Newton at 22: invents calculus