Question: who is first credited with trying to find the tangent to a curve in antiquity
Answer: Archimedes was the first to find the tangent to a curve other than a circle , in a method akin to differential calculus . While studying the spiral , he separated a point 's motion into two components , one radial motion component and one circular motion component , and then continued to add the two component motions together , thereby finding the tangent to the curve .