THE German philosopher, inventor and mathematician laid the foundations for the modern day calculator and computer.
Leibniz was born on July 1, 1646 in Leipzig and lived to be 70 years old.
Alamy Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz made the foundations for the modern day computer
Who was Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz?
Leibniz was one of the most brilliant minds of his age and became one of the most prolific inventors in the field of mechanical calculators, building on Pacal's calculator and he was the first to describe a pinwheel calculator in 1685.
He designed the Leibniz wheel, used in the arithmometer, the first mass-produced mechanical calculator.
Liebniz also refined the binary number system, the foundation of virtually all modern-day computers.
He wrote works on philosophy, politics, law, ethics, theology, history, and philology.
Archimedes, a mathematician in ancient Greece, first came up with an algorithm to calculate pi around 250 BC with the formula refined and improved by mathematicians in China and India.
Leibniz is credited as stating the first modern formula for pi.
His parents were Friedrich Leibniz and Catharina Schmuck.
He wrote his doctorate at the Leipzig University before enrolling at the University of Altdorf and passed his Doctorate in Law in November 1666.
Despite his brilliant mind he spent his final years cut out of the intellectual world after John Keill accused him of plagiarising Isaac Newton's work on calculus.
Google Google is honouring the German mathematician and philosopher with a Google Doodle
Even though he was a member of both the Royal Society and the Berlin Academy of Sciences neither body bothered to honour his death in 1716.
His grave went unmarked for more than 50 years.
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What is a Google Doodle?
In 1998, the search engine founders Larry and Sergey drew a stick figure behind the second 'o' of Google as a message to that they were out of office at the Burning Man festival and with that, Google Doodles were born.
The company decided that they should decorate the logo to mark cultural moments and it soon became clear that users really enjoyed the change to the Google homepage.
In that same year, a turkey was added to Thanksgiving and two pumpkins appeared as the 'o's for Halloween the following year.
Now, there is a full team of doodlers, illustrators, graphic designers, animators and classically trained artists who help create what you see on those days.
Among the Doodles published in 2018 were ones commemorating cartographer Abraham Ortelius, Egyptian actor Omar Sharif and St Patrick's Day.
Earlier in the year, the search giant celebrated the Paralympics in 2018 in Pyeongchang with an animated design celebrating each of the sports the winter Paralympians will compete in.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz is also credited for stating the first modern formula for pi.
Google today celebrates the 372nd birthday of German philosopher and mathematician's Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz with a doodle. He was born on July 1, 1646, Leipzig, then Roman Empire (now in Saxony, Germany). His contributions to a vast array of subjects have been scattered across various journals.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was easily one of the most brilliant minds of his time and occupies a prominent place in the history of mathematics. He is credited for his inventions in the field of mechanical calculators and was the first to describe a pinwheel calculator in 1685 and invented the Leibniz wheel, used in the arithmometer.
He occupies a prominent position for having developed differential and integral calculus independently of Isaac Newton. His notation has been widely used ever since it was published. The foundation of all modern-day computers has also been refined by him because of binary number system.
Mr Leibniz is also credited for stating the first modern formula for pi.
In philosophy, Mr Leibniz is most noted for his conclusion that our Universe is, in a restricted sense, the best possible one that God could have created, an idea that was often lampooned by others such as Voltaire.
He wrote and major contributions in the fields of philosophy, politics, law, ethics, theology, history, and philology.
Despite all this, he spent his final years away from the intellectual circles of the world after Scottish mathematician John Keill accused him of plagiarising Isaac Newton's work on calculus.
He died at the age of 70 in Hanover in 1716.
Sunday's Google Doodle celebrates the 372nd birthday of mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. He was born near the end of the Thirty Years War, into a world very different from today's, but his work helped lay the foundation for the computer or smartphone on which you're reading this article.
Working independently but at around the same time as Isaac Newton, Leibniz developed differential calculus, a type of mathematics used to calculate rates of change, and integral calculus, a type of mathematics used to calculate things like area and volume. Because Leibniz and Newton were both members of the Royal Society in London, it's likely they would have heard of each other's work even though they weren't collaborating. Leibniz was the first to publish, in 1684; Newton followed nine years later in 1693. But a few years later, the Royal Society - with Newton as its newly-installed president - accused Leibniz of plagiarizing Newton's work. The two mathematicians had used different ways of writing calculus down, however, and Leibniz's version is still used today - so in a way, he had the last word as well as the first.
Leibniz also developed the binary system, whose notation of zeroes and ones is the basis of modern computer languages. His book, Explication de l'Arithmétique Binaire, credited the ancient Chinese divination manual, the I Ching, with inspiring the binary system of zeroes and ones, since the I Ching's hexagrams use a very similar notation to record numbers. In an age of European ethnocentrism, Leibniz still recognized China's long-standing mathematical advancement. He also drew on the work of European mathematicians who had already invented their own systems of binary notation, but he refined and simplified those systems into the modern form of binary. And he wrote about logical properties that would be very familiar to modern information theorists and computer programmers - even if it's written in ink on parchment, as Sunday's Google Doodle depicts.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, a German polymath and philosopher, is today’s Google Doodle. July 1st would have been his 372nd birthday. In addition to philosophy, Leibniz was a pioneer in the field of mathematics, where he helped develop theories of differential and integral calculus and the early use of mechanical calculators.
“Every feeling is the perception of a truth”, Leibniz once wrote. “It is the knowledge of necessary and eternal truths that distinguishes us from the mere animals and gives us Reason and the sciences, raising us to the knowledge of ourselves and of God…”
Here’s what you need to know about Leibniz and his groundbreaking career:
1. He Discovered Philosophy by Studying His Late Father’s Library
Leibniz was born on July 1, 1646 to parents Friedrich Leibniz and Catharina Schmuck. His father Friedrich was a notary, a lawyer, and a professor of moral philosophy at Leipzig University who died when he was only six years old. According to Britannica, Leibniz attended Nicolai School as a child, but his interest in philosophy largely came from his father’s personal library, which had been left to him after his father’s death.
Leibniz enrolled at his father’s alma mater, Leipzig University, as a law student in 1661. It was during this time, Britannica reports, that he began reading the works of famous scientists like Galileo, Francis Bacon, and Thomas Hobbes, and developed an urge to combine, or “reconcile”, as he put it, the worlds of science and philosophy. Leibniz’s baccalaureate thesis, titled “On the Principle of the Individual”, was his first official attempt at doing so.
“On the Principle” focused on the existential value of the individual, and claimed that we are not to explained by matter alone, or by form alone, but by the whole being. The thesis also drew influence from various Lutheran beliefs, particularly Lutheran nominalism, which is the theory that the universe has no reality.
Leibniz completed his legal studies in 1666. He applied for the degree of doctor of law, but the Leipzig University turned him down, citing his age.
2. He Is Said to Have Developed Calculus Independently of Isaac Newton
Leibniz was a member of London’s Royal Society alongside Isaac Newton during the 1670s. It was there that Leibniz began working on the theory of differential calculus and integral calculus, which is the defined as the mathematical study of continuous change. According to The Story of Mathematics, he developed his theories independently of Newton, and was unaware that the latter was striving towards making similar discoveries.
Leibniz published his first work on calculus in 1684, and Newton published his in 1693. The confusion over who was the first to make strides in the development of calculus, and the rival claims made by both men, caused the Royal Society to investigate their findings. They ultimately decided to give credit for the discoveries to Newton, and credit for the first publication to Leibniz. The Story of Mathematics does state that Newton was the President of the Royal Society, however, and that the biased decision caused permanent damage to Leibniz’s reputation.
In addition to his work in calculus, Leibniz re-discovered a method of arranging linear equations into an array, which is now called a matrix. He also worked on the precursor to the mechanical calculating machine, or the calculator, and refined the binary number system, which is the foundation for all digital computers in the present day.
3. He Pioneered the Practice of Philosophical Optimism
In addition to his work in the field of mathematics, Leibniz was one of the first to put forth the concept of philosophical optimism. defines the concept as: “Distinct from a disposition to believe that things will work out, [it is the] philosophical idea that, perhaps in ways that may not be fully comprehended, the present moment is in an optimum state.” Leibniz wrote about the concept in his books Monadology and Théodicée, or Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil.
Leibniz claimed that God was an absolutely perfect being, and that people can logically conclude this since “the works must bear the imprint of the workman, because we can learn who he was just by inspecting them”. He says that God’s knowledge and power is to the highest degree, and due to his omnipotence, he had the ability to think “beyond the power of a finite mind” and chose “the best of all possible worlds” for his creation. The latter phrase has since become a popular one among philosophers, and is frequently cited as Leibniz’s most famous.
Leibniz’s optimistic worldview was criticized by many, most famously by Voltaire in his satirical novel Candide. Voltaire felt that philosophical optimism was a counterproductive theory, directly contrasting with pessimism and by extension, the notion of free will. In the book, the character Pangloss mocks Leibniz’s phrase “the best of all possible words” by repeating it like a mantra.
4. He Revolutionized the Catalogue System for Modern Libraries
Later in Leibniz’s career, he moved to Paris and accepted a position as a librarian in the Hanoverian court of Johann Friedrich, who was the Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg. It was here that Leibniz revolutionized the way that modern libraries organize and maintain their catalogue.
According to The Journal of Library History (1966-1972), he created an alphabetical author catalog and other cataloging methods that were not previously implemented in Europe, including an early form of indexing. He reportedly called upon publishers to put a registry of their titles, so that his library and the Bodleian Library at Oxford University could stay up to date with their catalogue. The latter request never came to fruition, but it later served as the basis for all English language publishers during the 20th Century.
5. He Was Buried In an Unmarked Grave for More than 50 Years
Despite his groundbreaking work, Leibniz often felt that he should have done for in the fields of science and philosophy. In a letter to a close friend, he wrote:
I cannot tell you how extraordinarily distracted and spread out I am. I am trying to find various things in the archives; I look at old papers and hunt up unpublished documents…. I receive and answer a huge number of letters. At the same time, I have so many mathematical results, philosophical thoughts, and other literary innovations that should not be left to disappear, that I often do not know where to begin…. Thanks to the help of a craftsman whom I have engaged, the calculator with which one can do multiplications up to twelve decimal places is finally ready. A year has gone by; I still have the craftsman with me in order to make more machines of this type, for they are in constant demand.
By the time Leibniz died in Hanover in 1716, his achievements were all but forgotten, and he was mostly remembered for the mockery that Voltaire had made at his expense. Despite being a lifetime member of the Royal Society and Berlin Academy of Sciences, neither organization saw fit to honor his death or speak at his funeral. According to The Sun, his grave went unmarked for over 50 years.
Fortunately, Leibniz’s reputation has largely been restored. In 1985, the German government created the Leibniz Prize, which offers an annual award of 1.55 million euros for experimental results and 770,000 euros for theoretical ones.
It was the worlds largest prize for scientific achievement before the Fundamental Physics Prize, and is given to “to exceptional scientists and academics for their outstanding achievements in the field of research.”
