Leibniz's Developments of Machine Science

摘要

This paper is a tribute to the tercentenary of Leibniz's (1646-1716) death. After Aristotle (384-322 BC), one of the most impressive and original accomplishments of building rational knowledge about nature can be found in Leibniz's dynamics. Furthermore, his science of motion occupies a prominent place in his thought. In addition to these theoretical developments, Leibniz designed a calculating machine which performed the four arithmetic operations and worked as a mining engineer in Harz (Germany), with the design and construction of wind-mills. In this paper Leibniz's contributions to machine science, namely dynamics and machine design, are presented and discussed.