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Gottfried Wilhelm Von Leibniz
(sometimes "Leibnitz")
Leibniz, who entered university at fifteen years of age and received his bachelor's degree at seventeen, once said:

"It is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours like slaves in the labor of calculation, which could be safely relegated to anyone else if machines were used."

 

What did he do?
Leibniz developed Pascal's ideas and, in 1671, introduced the Step Reckoner, a device (indeed a computer!) which, as well as performing additions and subtractions, could multiply, divide, and evaluate square roots by series of stepped additions!!!
He advocated the use of the binary number system, which is fundamental to the operation of modern computers.

 


Diana Palmieri
Department of Philosophy
University of Western Ontario
(c)2004