Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (German: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz; July 1, 1646 - November 14, 1716), a German scientist, philosopher, and generalist, known as the "Aristotle of the seventeenth century". He himself often traveled to and from major towns; many of his formulas were completed on bumpy carriages, and he also claimed to have the noble status of a baron. Leibniz occupies an important position in the history of mathematics and philosophy. In mathematics, he and Newton independently invented calculus, and the mathematical symbols of calculus he used are more widely used. The symbols invented by Leibniz are generally considered to be more comprehensive and have a wider range of applications. Leibniz also contributed to the development of binary systems. In philosophy, Leibniz is most famous for his optimism; he believed that "our universe is, in a sense, the best of God's creations." He, Descartes, and Baruch Spinoza are considered the three greatest rationalist philosophers of the seventeenth century. Leibniz's work in philosophy, while anticipating the birth of modern logic and analytic philosophy, was also obviously deeply influenced by the scholastic tradition, applying more first principles or a priori definitions rather than experimental evidence to derive conclusions. Leibniz also made major contributions to the development of physics and technology, and developed concepts that would later touch upon a wide range of disciplines, including biology, medicine, geology, probability theory, psychology, linguistics, and information science. Leibniz left works in many directions such as politics, law, ethics, theology, philosophy, history, and linguistics. Leibniz's contributions to such a wide range of subjects are scattered among scholarly journals, thousands of letters, and unpublished manuscripts, four of which are in Latin, three in French, and one-fifth in German. As of 2010, not all of Leibniz's works have been collected. In 2007, the Leibniz manuscript collection of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library and Lower Saxony State Library was included in the Memory of the World project compiled by UNESCO.