From 1653 to 1661 Leibniz attended the Nikolai School in Leipzig. His enormous hunger for knowledge became clear from an early age: as an eight-year-old, he used access to his father's library to teach himself the Latin language. In 1661, Leibniz began studying at the university in his hometown. In addition to studying philosophy and law, he studied mathematics, logic, physics and, throughout his life, alchemy. In 1666, Leibniz was forced to move to the University of Altdorf near Nuremberg: in Leipzig he was denied a doctorate due to his young age - he was just 20 years old. The following year, 1667, Leibniz received his doctorate brilliantly and was then offered a professorship.

Leibniz declined because he did not expect an academic career to provide enough opportunities for development. Instead, Leibniz published a treatise on legal reform ("Nova methodus socendae discendaeque jurisprudentiae") in the same year. First he took up a position as a diplomatic advisor to the Elector of Mainz, Johann Philipp von Schönborn. He was sent to Paris in 1672 with a political mission: in order to divert France's power interests from Germany, Leibniz was supposed to persuade Louis XIV to attack Egypt - a mission that was unsuccessful. In 1675 he discovered the basics of differential calculus. From 1672 to 1676 Leibniz lived alternately in Paris and London. He trained primarily in mathematics and met many leading scholars of his time.

Leibniz had been a foreign member of the Paris "Academie des Sciences" since 1669, and in 1673 he also became a member of the London "Royal Society". A circumstance that he owed to extensive mathematical studies and the invention of a calculating machine for the four basic arithmetic operations. In 1676, Leibniz moved to Hanover, where he became a librarian and, in 1677, legal councilor to Duke Johann Friedrich. His mathematical interests initially took a backseat to this activity. However, with the founding of the "Acta eruditorum", a scientific journal, in 1682, he received and took advantage of the opportunity to regularly publish scientific research results. In 1685, Leibniz received the commission from Duke Ernst August of Hanover to write the history of the ruling dynasty of the Guelphs, a task which he fulfilled reluctantly but with his characteristic thoroughness. Ultimately, however, he did not finish the historical work.

In connection with this assignment, Leibniz also came to Rome, where he was offered to look after the Vatican Library. Since he would have had to become a Catholic, he refused. Instead, he took over the management of the library in Wolfenbüttel in 1691. In 1700, Leibniz became president of the Berlin "Society of Sciences", an institution that was founded at his instigation and with the support of the Hanoverian Princess Sophie Charlotte. Leibniz spent the years 1712 to 1714 in Vienna, where he was appointed Reichshofrat in 1713. Leibniz had also been a scientific advisor to the Russian Tsar Peter I since 1711.

Leibniz thus devoted a large part of his time to statesmanship, which deprived him of the time to write larger scientific works. He has three main works in the field of philosophy: "New Experiments on the Human Understanding" (1703), "Theodicy" (1710) and "Monadology" (1714). He also left behind an almost unmanageable amount of letters and magazine articles. Towards the end of his life there was a falling out with the court in Hanover, on the one hand because of the never-finished history of the Guelphs, but also because of the numerous trips that Leibniz undertook without official permission.

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz died on November 14, 1716 at the age of 70 in Hanover. No representatives of the court or civil servants attended his funeral. The German Research Foundation now awards the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prizes in his honor every year.

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Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

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