Leibniz (G. w． Leibniz，1646． 7． 1—1716． 11． 14) Born in Leipzig, Germany, died in Hanover, Germany, Leibniz was born in Xiangmendi, and his father Friedrich. Leibniz is a professor of moral philosophy at the University of Leipzig, and his mother, Catherine Shkak, came from a family of professors and was a devout Lutheran Protestant. The fact that his parents themselves were the initiation teachers of their children made Leibniz very studious from an early age and highly talented. From an early age, he developed a keen interest in poetry and history. Unfortunately, his father died when he was 6 years old, leaving him with a rich collection of books that were more valuable than money. Since then, Zhishu Dali's mother has undertaken her son's early education.
At the age of 8, Leibniz entered the Nikolai School, where he studied Latin, Greek, rhetoric, arithmetic, logic, music, the Bible, Lutheran teachings, and so on. In 1661, at the age of 15, Leibniz entered the University of Leipzig to study law, and as soon as he entered the school, he took the standard humanities curriculum of the second year of the university, and he also seized the time to study philosophy and science. In May 1663, he received his bachelor's degree in "On metaphysical controversies concerning individual principles.".
In January 1664, Leibniz completed his thesis "On the Difficulties of Jurisprudence" and received a master's degree in philosophy. On February 12 of that year, his mother died tragically. The 18-year-old Leibniz has since lived alone, and he was deeply influenced by his mother in terms of thought and personality.
In 1665, Leibniz submitted his doctoral dissertation "On Identity" to the University of Leipzig, and in 1666, the censorship committee refused to award him a doctorate in law because he was too young (only 20 years old), and Hegel believed that this may be due to leibniz's philosophical insights, and the professors who reviewed the papers were very unhappy to see that he studied philosophy vigorously. Indignant at this, he resolutely left Leipzig for the University of Altdorf near Nuremberg, and immediately submitted the doctoral dissertation that had been prepared to the school, and in February 1667, the University of Artdorf awarded him a doctorate in law and hired him as a professor of law. But he refused, determined to plunge into the outside world and do something more meaningful.
Leibniz joined a group of alchemists in Nuremberg. In 1667, through the group, he became acquainted with the politician Baron John Christiewen of Boynborg, and was recommended by the Baron to the Elector Hou Mainz, and Leibniz entered the political arena. In 1669, by reading the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Leibniz learned that G. Huygens was informed. U Huygens), who was discussing collisions with others, prompted him to think about the natural sciences.
Beginning in 1671, Leibniz used his diplomatic activities to open up extensive contacts with the outside world. 167l — In the winter of 1672, he was entrusted by the Elector of Mainz to prepare plans to stop the French attack on Germany. In 1672, Leibniz, as a diplomat, went to Paris to try to persuade King Louis XIV of France to abandon the attack, but he never met with the King, let alone complete the task entrusted to him by the Elector. The diplomatic campaign ended in failure. However, during his stay in Paris, France from 1672 to 1676, Leibniz began his academic career. At that time, Paris was one of the scientific and cultural centers in Europe, and he studied hard and quickly mastered the French language, and met many famous people in the scientific and philosophical circles, so that his actions and ideas began to go beyond Germany and the world. Many of his major scientific ideas and achievements in his life, such as calculus, computers, etc., were achieved or germinated during this period.
In January 1673, in order to promote reconciliation between England and the Netherlands, he went to London to mediate, but without success. He took the opportunity to establish contacts with well-known scholars in British academia. He met with the mathematician H. Olde Burg, secretary of the Royal Society, with whom he corresponded for three years, and the physicist R. Hook. Hooske), chemist R. Boyle Boyle) et al. He returned to Paris in March 1673 and was recommended a fellow of the Royal Society in April. During this period, his interest became more and more evident in mathematics and the natural sciences.
In October 1672, the Elector of Mainz died, and Leibniz lost his position and salary, leaving him only a governess. At that time, he had sought a formal position as a diplomat in many ways, or hoped to find a position at the French Academy of Sciences, but without success. Reluctantly, he accepted the invitation of Johann Friedrich, Duke of Hanover, and went to Hanover.
On 4 October 1676, Leibniz left Paris, first making a brief stop in London. He then traveled to the Netherlands and met the biologist A. Leeuwenhoek. U． Lceuwenhock)。 Leeuwenhoek used a microscope to observe bacteria, protozoa, and sperm for the first time, which had an impact on Leibniz's later philosophical thought. In The Hague, he met B. Spinoza. Spinoga)。 In January 1677, Leibniz arrived in Hanover to serve as legal adviser and librarian of the Duchy of Brunswick, where he was responsible for international communications and served as a technical adviser. Hanyu Wei became his permanent residence.
In addition to his busy duties, Leibniz studied philosophy and various scientific and technical issues extensively, and engaged in a wide range of academic, cultural and socio-political activities. Soon, he became a member of the court, became famous in society, and his life became rich. In 1682, he married O. Menck. Mencke founded the academic chronicle (also known as the Teacher's Journal), an influential Latin scientific magazine in the history of modern science, in which most of his mathematical and philosophical articles were published; at this time, his philosophical ideas gradually matured.
In December 1679, John Friedrich, Duke of Brunswick, died suddenly, and his brother Auguste succeeded him to the knighthood, but Leibniz remained in his original position. The new Duchess Sophie was an admirer of his philosophical doctrines. "No two leaves in the world are exactly the same" comes from his conversation with Sophie.
In order to fulfill his ambition to gain prominence throughout Germany, August suggested that Leibniz conduct extensive historical research and investigation and write a work on the recent history of their family. He began the work in 1686. After studying valuable local archival material, he requested an extensive trip through Europe. In November 687, Leibniz left Hanover and arrived in Vienna in the early summer of 1688 in May. In addition to looking up archives, he spent a lot of time meeting scholars and celebrities. In Vienna. He met with the Austrian Emperor Leopold I (1640-1705), who impressed him by composing a series of economic and scientific plans for him. He tried to find a position in the Austrian court, but did not receive a positive answer until 1713, and his request to ancient Austria to establish a "world library" never materialized. He then traveled to Venice and then to Rome. In Rome, he was elected a member of the Roman Academy of Sciences and Mathematics. In 1690, Leibniz returned to Hanover. For his exploits in writing the history of the Brentsvik family, he was given the post of Privy Counsellor.
During the turn of the century of 1700, Leibniz was enthusiastically engaged in the planning and construction of the Academy of Sciences. He felt that scholars' independent research was a waste of time and had little effect, so he vigorously advocated the concentration of talents to study academic, cultural and engineering technologies, so as to better arrange social production and guide national construction. From 1695 onwards, he lobbied and lobbied for the establishment of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin. In 1698, he personally went to Berlin for this purpose. In 1700, on his second visit to Berlin, he was sponsored by Friedrich I, especially his wife (daughter of the Duke of August in Hanover), to establish the Berlin Academy of Sciences, of which he served as its first president. In February 700, he was also elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences. At this point, the four major academies of science in the world at that time: the Royal Society, the French Academy of Sciences, the Roman Academy of Sciences and Mathematics, and the Berlin Academy of Sciences all had Leibniz as the core member.
In early 713, the Emperor of Vienna granted him the post of imperial adviser and invited him to direct the establishment of the Academy of Sciences. Peter the Great of Russia also listened to Leibniz's advice several times during his travels to Europe in 17ll-1716. Leibniz tried to convince the brilliant emperor that it would be valuable to establish an academy of sciences in Petersburg. Peter the Great was intrigued, and in 1712 he gave Leibniz a paid court adviser to mathematics and science. Around 712, he was also employed by the Royal Families of Widunner, Brunswick, Berlin, and Petersburg. During this period he actively advocated his plans to write encyclopedias, establish academies of sciences, and use technology to transform society as soon as he had the opportunity. After his death, the Vienna Academy of Sciences and the Petersburg Academy of Sciences were established successively. He is also rumored to have advised the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing Dynasty to establish an academy of sciences in Beijing through missionaries.
Walk into Gottfried Leibniz
Just as Leibniz was favored by the various courts, he was already beginning to reach a tragic old age. On November 14, 1716, after a week of bedridden with abdominal colic caused by gallstones, Leibniz died in isolation. He was 70 years old.
Leibniz never married or a professor at the university. He never entered the classroom, so people gave him the nickname: Lovenix, the man who didn't believe in anything. When he died, the priests used this as an excuse to ignore him, and the court that had hired him did not ask questions, and no one came to mourn. On his deathbed, he was accompanied only by the doctor he trusted and his secretary, Eckhart. After Eckhart issued the obituary, the secretary of the French Academy of Sciences, Fontener, at the regular meeting of the Academy of Sciences. A eulogy was delivered to Leibniz, a foreign member. In 1793, the Hanoverians erected a monument to him; in 1883, a standing statue of him was erected near a church in Leipzig; in 1983, the Hanover city government rebuilt the "Leibniz House", which had been destroyed in The Second World War. For people to see.
Leibniz was an outstanding scholar of encyclopedic stature; his research and achievements covered mathematics, physics, mechanics, logic, biology, chemistry, geography, anatomy, zoology, botany, gases, navigation, geology, linguistics, jurisprudence, philosophy, history, diplomacy, among others. Among them, mathematics and philosophy are the most famous.
In mathematics, his most important achievements were threefold, with I. Newton. Hewton independently founded calculus, laying the foundations of modern mathematics; did a series of pioneering work for mathematical logic, laying the foundation for mathematical logic; conducted detailed research on the binary system; made computers, and proposed the idea of program automation.
In mathematical research, he gave the basic laws and formulas for derivatives and integrals, proposed methods for solving certain differential equations, and created the variational method with Newton and others. He also proposed Wilson's theorem in number theory, discussed special solutions to Fermat's Last Theorem, developed symbolic algebras, and conducted some pioneering research on solving algebraic equations and determinant theory.
In 1671, Leibniz wrote The New Hypothesis of Physics, which consisted of two parts: the concrete principle of motion, which was dedicated to the Royal Society: the abstract principle of motion, which was dedicated to the French Academy of Sciences. In this article, he presents a research plan for physics.
In 1686, Leibniz published articles in journals such as the Academic Chronicle, in which he sharply criticized Descartes for studying the basis of collisional motion, using the product of mass and velocity mv as a measure of motion, and he discovered a new measure of mv2 from the object movement, believing that mv2 should be a measure of motion. Thus began the long debate between the Leibniz and Cartesians over the measure of exercise, and European scientists have long belonged to or tended to these two opposing schools. Leibniz also did not deny that Descartes' measure of motion mv was valid in many cases, for example, in the case of simple mechanical devices such as levers, pulleys, axles, etc., in order to consider the balance of the device, it makes sense to calculate the value of mv. However, he called these "deadly" occasions. Call mv2 "vitality". For real sports, only "vitality" can be used as a measure. He believed that "vitality" mv2 was the ultimate cause in physics and could therefore be transformed into a variety of forms. Thus he first proposed that conservation of mv2 is a universal physical principle, which is the dimensional form of the principle of conservation of energy.
In optics, Leibniz derived the law of refraction and tried to derive other optical laws mathematically.
Leibniz opposed Newton's proposed view of absolute space-time, with Newton's student Clark S. Clarke) had a long debate. In 1687, Newton's Principia Mathematica in Natural Philosophy had just been published, and Leibniz published a review of the book in 1688. In November 1715, he wrote down his views on Newton's emptiness and forwarded them to Clark, and the two began to discuss. The ten letters discussed were compiled by Clarke into Correspondence between Mr. Leibniz and Dr. Clark on Natural Philosophy and Religious Principles in 1715 and 1716, published in London in 1717. He believes that time, space and motion, matter, etc. are inseparable. This idea later gave rise to the attention of E. Mach. Mach), A. Einstein Einstein) et al. concerns.
In 1684, Leibniz pointed out in his article "New Analytical Proof of Force on Solids" that fibers can be extended, and their drape is proportional to elongation, so he proposed to apply Hooke's law F=-kx to single fibers. This hypothesis was later referred to in the mechanics of materials as the Mariot-Leibniz theory.
In 693, Leibniz published an article on the origin of the Earth, which was later expanded into the book "Primitive Earth", proposing the reasons for the formation of igneous and sedimentary rocks on the Earth. For biological fossils in the formation, he believes that these fossils reflect the continuous development of biological species, and the ultimate reason for this phenomenon is changes in nature, not accidental miracles. His theory of the genesis of the earth, especially his ideas of the evolution of the universe and the evolution of the earth, inspired Lamarck, Reil, and others, and to some extent contributed to the progress of 19th-century geological theory.
In 1677, he wrote a history of the discovery of phosphorus, which discussed the properties and extraction of phosphorus. He also proposed techniques for separating chemicals and desalining water.
In biology, Leibniz put forward various philosophical views on organicism in his works such as The Monoton, published in 1714. He believed that there were organisms between animals and plants, and the discovery of hydra proved his point.
In meteorology. He personally organized manpower to observe atmospheric pressure and weather conditions.
In formal logic, he distinguished and studied the truth of reason (the proposition of necessity) and the truth of fact (the proposition of contingency), and introduced the "law of sufficient reason" in logic, which was later considered to be a fundamental law of thought.
In 1696, Leibniz proposed the psychological parallelism between mind and body, emphasizing the role of unification, and with R. Descartes Descartes' interaction theory and Spinoza's monism constituted the three major theories of psychology at that time. He also proposed the initial ideas of the "subconscious" theory.
In 1691, Leibniz wrote to Papen proposing the basic idea of the steam engine.
Around 700, he proposed the principle of liquidless air pressure, in which the night column was completely omitted. This has played an important role in the history of the development of pneumatic presses.
Law was the discipline in which Leibniz received his degree, and in 1667 he published the New Law on the Teaching of Law, and he had a series of profound ideas in law.
In 1677, Leibniz published "Leading to a Common Script", and after that he devoted himself to the study of universal literary thought for a long time, and made certain contributions to logic and linguistics. Today, he is recognized as a pioneer of Esperanto.
As a famous philosopher, his philosophy is mainly "monad theory", "predetermined harmony" and natural philosophical theory. The combination of his doctrine and the theories of his disciple Wolff formed the Leibniz-Wolff system, which greatly influenced the development of German philosophy, especially Kant's philosophical thought. The German natural philosophy he pioneered developed greatly through Wolff, Kant, Goethe and Hegel.
During Leibniz's career in academic research, he published a large number of academic papers, many of which were not published during his lifetime. In mathematics, Gerhart edited the 7-volume Mathematical Encyclopedia (published in 1849-1863 and republished in 1962) is a representative work of Leibniz's complete mathematical research. Gerhardt also edited the 7-volume Complete Book of Philosophy. Dozens of anthologies, writings, and letters have been published, from which Leibniz's major scholarly achievements can be seen. Leibniz's complete works are still under edit. Today, there is also a special Leibniz research journal "Leibniz", which shows its important position in the history of science and culture.