We live in the best of all possible worlds
Gottfried LeibnizRead
Taking mathematics from the beginning of the world to the time when Newton lived, what he had done was much the better half.
Interpretation
Leibniz emphasizes Newton's significant contributions to mathematics as foundational and transformative.
Gottfried Leibniz's quote reflects on the evolution of mathematics up to the time of Isaac Newton, suggesting that Newton's work represents a pivotal and superior progression in the field. This highlights not only Newton's brilliance but also positions his discoveries as crucial milestones that elevated the discipline of mathematics to new heights.
In practice
In a lecture on the history of science, one might quote Leibniz to highlight the impact of Newton's work.
We live in the best of all possible worlds
I am so in favor of the actual infinite that instead of admitting that Nature abhors it, as is commonly said, I hold that Nature makes frequent use of it everywhere, in order to show more effectively the perfections of its Author.
It is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours like slaves in the labor of calculation which could be relegated to anyone else if machines were used.
According to their [Newton and his followers] doctrine, God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion. Nay, the machine of God's making, so imperfect, according to these gentlemen; that he is obliged to clean it now and then by an extraordinary concourse, and even to mend it, as clockmaker mends his work.
..This is why the ultimate reason of things must lie in a necessary substance, in which the differentiation of the changes only exists eminently as in their source; and this is what we call God.
...a distinction must be made between true and false ideas, and that too much rein must not be given to a man's imagination under pretext of its being a clear and distinct intellection.
What, then, is this blue sky, which certainly does exist, and which veils from us the stars during the day?
Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: 'Ye must have faith.'
You may object that by speaking of simplicity and beauty I am introducing aesthetic criteria of truth, and I frankly admit that I am strongly attracted by the simplicity and beauty of mathematical schemes which nature presents us. You must have felt this too: the almost frightening simplicity and wholeness of the relationship, which nature suddenly spreads out before us.
As scientists, we step on the shoulders of science, building on the work that has come before us - aiming to inspire a new generation of young scientists to continue once we are gone.
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Wherever we look at the living biota … discontinuities are overwhelmingly frequent…The discontinuities are even more striking in the fossil record. New species usually appear in the fossil record suddenly, not connected with their ancestors by a series of intermediates.
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