Ten fun facts about Gottfried Leibniz
Fact 1
He occupies a prominent place in the history of mathematics and the history of philosophy.
Fact 2
Leibniz developed the infinitesimal calculus independently of Isaac Newton, and Leibniz's mathematical notation has been widely used ever since it was published.
Fact 3
It was only in the 20th century that his Law of Continuity and Transcendental Law of Homogeneity found mathematical implementation (by means of non-standard analysis).
Fact 4He became one of the most prolific inventors in the field of mechanical calculators.
Fact 5While working on adding automatic multiplication and division to Pascal's calculator, he was the first to describe a pinwheel calculator in 1685 and invented the Leibniz wheel, used in the arithmometer, the first mass-produced mechanical calculator.
Fact 6He also refined the binary number system, which is at the foundation of virtually all digital computers.
Fact 7In philosophy, Leibniz is most noted for his optimism, e.g., his conclusion that our Universe is, in a restricted sense, the best possible one that God could have created.
Fact 8Leibniz, along with René Descartes and Baruch Spinoza, was one of the three great 17th century advocates of rationalism.
Fact 9The work of Leibniz anticipated modern logic and analytic philosophy, but his philosophy also looks back to the scholastic tradition, in which conclusions are produced by applying reason to first principles or prior definitions rather than to empirical evidence.
Fact 10Leibniz made major contributions to physics and technology, and anticipated notions that surfaced much later in philosophy, probability theory, biology, medicine, geology, psychology, linguistics, and computer science.
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