According to Norbert Wiener, if the world needed a patron saint of cybernetics, it would be Leibniz. And we have to agree with the father of cybernetics: who else if not the creator of the binary number system, alpha and omega of the computer world, should be its icon? However, this is not the only scientific achievement of the mathematician and physic, philosopher and diplomat. As a youth, he bravely started with mathematization of logic and later, invented an arithmometer that was better than Pascal’s: it multiplied, divided and took roots. He became member of the Royal Society of London and created mathematical analysis, an articulate theory with its own symbolism and terminology. And let the exhausted students of integrals joke that one day Leibniz let an empty bucket fall into the sewage and had to wriggle so hard that he invented the integral. Anyway, they are learning it for the world’s good, the long letter S, the symbol of the integral. And about differentials that he also created, he spoke concisely and precisely: “Other very learned men have sought in many devious ways what someone versed in this calculus can accomplish in three lines.” Do you think that is enough for him? Well, he also created the combinatorial theory and a couple of Academies of Sciences: in addition to the one in Berlin, his native country, he helped the creation of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Anyway, it was he who developed education development project in Russia by request of Peter the Great. He was a clever man and believed that any human conflict could be reduced to mathematics and logic. “Why make war?” he said. “Let’s sit down and count. On the medal made in honor of the binary number system, there is an inscription engraved on Leibniz’ request: “Everything can be derived from nothing; all that is needed is 1.”
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Information provided by the Scientific Russia News Agency. Media outlet’s registration certificate: IA No. FS77-62580 issued by the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media on July 31, 2015.
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Billions of dollars are spent on research in the field of laser thermonuclear fusion. Why is it needed and what successful experiments have already been done? Speaker: Mikhail Leonidovich Shmatov, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences
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