Newton, Leibniz and actuarial science

Abstract In this bicentenary year of Gompertz (1825) [23] we advance a conjecture; that the split between Newtonian and Leibnizian forms of calculus occurring in the eighteenth century had a long-term influence on actuarial science in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. When the growing life insurance industry in Britain needed mathematical expertise, a profession with Newtonian roots was created to supply it, while elsewhere in Europe it was found in universities with Leibnizian roots. We consider the consequences up to the present day, when analysis in the Leibnizian branch has led via Kolmogorov [49] to modern financial mathematics.