Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

(1646 - 1716)

Often considered a pioneer in the theoretical foundations of computer science, the German polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz met Christiaan Huygens, a Dutch mathematician and physicist, while on a diplomatic mission to Paris. Huygens provided him with manuscripts by Blaise Pascal, from which Leibniz began his work on differential calculus. In later years, Leibniz fell into controversy with Isaac Newton over which of them had invented calculus. “I see that his calculus agrees with mine,” he wrote Huygens after reading of Newton’s work, but he felt his version was “more fitted for enlightening the mind.”