Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1 July 1646-14 November 1716) was a German philosopher and mathemitican. His mathematical notation and his 1685 pinwheel calculator were important math innovations and he also promoted optimism, saying that this universe was the best that God could have created.
Biography[]
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born in Leipzig, Electorate of Saxony, Holy Roman Empire on 1 July 1646. He was educated at Leipzig University, the University of Jena, and the University of Altdorf, and he became a noted philosopher and mathematician. He developed differential and integral calculus independently of Isaac Newton, and his notation was widely used since its publication. He also created a pinwheel calculator in 1685. In philosophy, Leibniz believed that the universe was the best one that God could have created, leading to criticism by Voltaire and others. Leibniz, Rene Descartes, and Baruch Spinoza were the three greatest rationalists of the 17th century, and his work anticipated modern logic and analytic philosophy, while also looking back to the scholastic tradition. He died in Hanover in 1716.
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