Orateur
Description
Leibniz wrote more texts in mathematics than in any other field of his activity. Currently, the eighth of 30 planned volumes of his mathematical writings is being completed in series VII of the Academy Edition of his Complete Writings and Correspondence. With the exception of a few older examples, all the texts edited in volumes VII,1-8 were written during his stay in Paris from 1672 until his arrival in Hanover at the end of 1676. None of these texts was printed during Leibniz's lifetime. They include his treatise on the arithmetic quadrature of the circle as well as the early texts on infinitesimal mathematics with the characteristic triangle and the transmutation method, but also the first texts on differential and integral calculus, in which the symbols d and ∫ still used today were introduced. Other topics of his research were algebra, especially the discussion of imaginary numbers, combinatorics, construction of equations and problems of number theory. He also continued to research the foundations of geometry and the conic sections. Last but not least, his excerpts from the manuscripts of Descartes and Pascal are of great importance as the originals were lost in later years.
