Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Who was the German philosopher and mathematician?

Today’s Google Doodle marks the 372nd birthday of German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who lived from 1646 to 1716.

An academic with many strings to his bow, he was both intellectually brilliant and also no stranger to controversy.

His work on the binary code paved the way for some of today’s modern technology – primarily, the computer.

He was born on 1 July 1646 in Leipzig, Germany, and started his intellectual journey young. His mother raised him with a devotion to his education.

Having inherited the library of his father, who had been a Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Leipzig but died when his son was just six years old, Leibniz had access to lots of books on philosophy and theology from an age when other children were still reading fairy tales.

The writings in Latin helped him pick up the language by the age of 12. When he was 14, the smart youngster enrolled at the same university his father had taught at, he completed his bachelor’s degree in philosophy aged 15, gained a master’s degree a year later and then an undergraduate degree in law a year after that.

He wrote his first book called De Arte Combinatoria (On the Combinatorial Art) at the age of 19.

One of his greatest claims to fame is developing the binary system, which consists of 1s and 0s and is at the core of modern computing.

Ancient cultures had previously used their own binary systems and Leibniz was particularly inspired by the Chinese I Ching, recognising the country’s mathematical advancement.

He wrote Explication de l'Arithmétique Binaire (Explanation of Binary Arithmetic (1703) on the subject.

His achievements in the world of mathematics, included developing differential calculus and integral calculus.

During his time, he met many great minds including Galileo, Francis Bacon, René Descartes and Baruch Spinoza, but not all his relationships were positive.

He had a sort of rivalry with Isaac Newton – an argument between them over who first invented and wrote about calculus, the mathematical study of change, raged for years.

Newton accused him of stealing ideas based on his unpublished works, in a battle that gained notoriety in the academic world and was something that would hang over Leibniz for years.

Able to write in Latin and French, as well as German, Leibniz wrote a number of, essays, journal articles and manuscripts, much of which were published long after his death. He wrote on topics including mathematics, metaphysics, philosophy, politics, logic and ethics.

In the world of philosophy, one of his writings argues God created “the best of all possible worlds” – a theory which is explored in ‘Théodicée’. He also took interest in multiple other subjects such as medicine, technology, physics and geology.

He also worked as a political adviser, working with multiple rulers of the House of Brunswick.

When he died in Hanover in 1706 his grave was unmarked for 50 years as he had fallen out with both the Royal Society and the Berlin Academy of Sciences.

Years after his death, he would regain some of the reputation that he had lost, after his works were made more publicly available.

The Leibniz Prize was created in his name in Germany in 1985 to help outstanding scientists and academics further their research. It pays out a maximum of €2.5 million per award

The Google Doodle honouring him today says "Google" in binary code.