Mathematics
German polymath · 1646–1716
The calculus, the dream of a universal logic, and a calculating reason.
Start learning Gottfried →How Leibniz, independently of Newton, discovered the calculus - a method for handling the infinitely small, taming the twin problems of tangents and areas with a single symbolic machinery.
Why Leibniz’s symbols for the calculus - the differential d and the elongated S of the integral - were not mere decoration but a deliberate design that made the mathematics think for you.
How Leibniz developed the base-two number system - every number written with only 0 and 1 - finding in it a metaphysical image of creation and laying, unknowingly, the arithmetical foundation of the digital age.
Leibniz’s most audacious dream: a universal symbolic language (the characteristica universalis ) and a calculus of reasoning (the calculus ratiocinator ) that would let all thought be carried out, and all disputes…
Leibniz the metaphysician: the principle of sufficient reason, the monads as the true atoms of reality, and the famous and much-mocked claim that ours is the best of all possible worlds - the optimisation logic of a mat…
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