On this day in 1646 prominent German polymath Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz was born. Leibniz was born in Leipzig and in his lifetime made several significant contributions as a logician, mathematician and philosopher. One of his most prominent accomplishments was the development of modern ideas of differential and integral calculus, with his eponymous notation becoming the conventional expression of calculus. Leibniz was also one of the earliest contributors to modern computing. He worked on adding automatic multiplication and division to Pascal’s calculator; developed the idea of a pinwheel calculator; and later invented the Leibniz wheel, which was used in the arithmometer, the first mass-produced mechanical calculator. Leibniz also refined the binary number system, which is foundational to digital computing.
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