Coordinates	31°51′51″N35°10′11″N
Region	Western Philosophy
Era	17th-century philosophy18th-century philosophy
Color	#B0C4DE
Name	Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Birth date	July 1, 1646
Birth place	Leipzig, Electorate of Saxony
Death date	November 14, 1716
Death place	Hanover, Electorate of Hanover
Main interests	Mathematics, metaphysics, logic, theodicy
Doctoral advisor	Erhard Weigel
Doctoral students	Jacob BernoulliChristian von Wolff
Influences	Holy Scripture, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine of Hippo, Scholasticism, Ramon Llull, Thomas Aquinas, Nicholas of Cusa, Suárez, Descartes, Hobbes, Pico della Mirandola, Jakob Thomasius, Gassendi, Spinoza, Bossuet, Pascal, Malebranche, Huygens, Steno
Influenced	Christian Wolff, Maupertuis, Vico, Boscovich, David Hume, Kant, Bonald, Russell, Varisco, Kurt Gödel, Heidegger, LaRouche, Nietzsche
Notable ideas	Infinitesimal calculusMonadsBest of all possible worldsLeibniz formula for πLeibniz harmonic triangleLeibniz formula for determinantsLeibniz integral rulePrinciple of sufficient reasonDiagrammatic reasoningNotation for differentiationProof of Fermat's little theoremKinetic energy EntscheidungsproblemAST
Signature	Leibnitz signature.svg }}

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (sometimes ''von Leibniz'') ( or ) (July 1, 1646 – November 14, 1716) was a German philosopher and mathematician. He wrote in multiple languages, primarily in Latin (~40%), French (~30%) and German (~15%).

Leibniz occupies a prominent place in the history of mathematics and the history of philosophy. He developed the infinitesimal calculus independently of Isaac Newton, and Leibniz's mathematical notation has been widely used ever since it was published. He became one of the most prolific inventors in the field of mechanical calculators. While working on adding automatic multiplication and division to Pascal's calculator, he was the first to describe a pinwheel calculator in 1685 and invented the Leibniz wheel, used in the arithmometer, the first mass-produced mechanical calculator. He also refined the binary number system, which is at the foundation of virtually all digital computers. In philosophy, Leibniz is mostly noted for his optimism, ''e.g.'' his conclusion that our Universe is, in a restricted sense, the best possible one that God could have created. Leibniz, along with René Descartes and Baruch Spinoza, was one of the three great 17th century advocates of rationalism. The work of Leibniz anticipated modern logic and analytic philosophy, but his philosophy also looks back to the scholastic tradition, in which conclusions are produced by applying reason to first principles or a priori definitions rather than to empirical evidence. Leibniz made major contributions to physics and technology, and anticipated notions that surfaced much later in biology, medicine, geology, probability theory, psychology, linguistics, and information science. He wrote works on politics, law, ethics, theology, history, philosophy, and philology. Leibniz's contributions to this vast array of subjects were scattered in various learned journals, in tens of thousands of letters, and in unpublished manuscripts. As of 2011, there is no complete gathering of the writings of Leibniz.

Biography

Early life

Gottfried Leibniz was born on July 1, 1646 in Leipzig, Saxony (at the end of the Thirty Years' War), to Friedrich Leibniz and Catherina Schmuck. Leibniz's father, who was of Sorbian ancestry, died when he was six years old, and from that point on, he was raised by his mother. Her teachings influenced Leibniz's philosophical thoughts in his later life.

Leibniz's father, Friedrich Leibniz, had been a Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Leipzig, so Leibniz inherited his father's personal library. He was given free access to this from the age of seven and thereafter. While Leibniz's schoolwork focused on a small canon of authorities, his father's library enabled him to study a wide variety of advanced philosophical and theological works – ones that he would not have otherwise been able to read until his college years. Access to his father's library, largely written in Latin, also led to his proficiency in the Latin language. Leibniz was proficient in Latin by the age of 12, and he composed three hundred hexameters of Latin verse in a single morning for a special event at school at the age of 13.

He enrolled in his father's former university at age 14, and he completed his bachelor's degree in philosophy in December of 1662. He defended his ''Disputatio Metaphysica de Principio Individui'', which addressed the Principle of individuation, on June 9, 1663. Leibniz earned his master's degree in philosophy on February 7, 1664. He published and defended a dissertation ''Specimen Quaestionum Philosophicarum ex Jure collectarum'', arguing for both a theoretical and a pedagogical relationship between philosophy and law, in December 1664. After one year of legal studies, he was awarded his bachelor's degree in Law on September 28, 1665.

In 1666, (at age 20), Leibniz published his first book, ''On the Art of Combinations'', the first part of which was also his habilitation thesis in philosophy. His next goal was to earn his license and doctorate in Law, which normally required three years of study then. Older students in the law school blocked his early graduation plans, prompting Leibniz to leave Leipzig in disgust in September of 1666.

Leibniz then enrolled in the University of Altdorf, and almost immediately he submitted a thesis, which he had probably been working on earlier in Leipzig. The title of his thesis was ''Disputatio de Casibus perplexis in Jure.'' Leibniz earned his license to practice law and his Doctorate in Law in November of 1666. He next declined the offer of an academic appointment at Altdorf, and he spent the rest of his life in the paid service of two main German noble families.

As an adult, Leibniz often introduced himself as "Gottfried von Leibniz". Also many posthumously-published editions of his writings presented his name on the title page as "Freiherr G. W. von Leibniz." However, no document has ever been found from any contemporary government that stated his appointment to any form of nobility.

1666–74

Leibniz's first position was as a salaried alchemist in Nuremberg, even though he knew nothing about the subject. He soon met Johann Christian von Boineburg (1622–1672), the dismissed chief minister of the Elector of Mainz, Johann Philipp von Schönborn. Von Boineburg hired Leibniz as an assistant, and shortly thereafter reconciled with the Elector and introduced Leibniz to him. Leibniz then dedicated an essay on law to the Elector in the hope of obtaining employment. The stratagem worked; the Elector asked Leibniz to assist with the redrafting of the legal code for his Electorate. In 1669, Leibniz was appointed Assessor in the Court of Appeal. Although von Boineburg died late in 1672, Leibniz remained under the employment of his widow until she dismissed him in 1674.

Von Boineburg did much to promote Leibniz's reputation, and the latter's memoranda and letters began to attract favorable notice. Leibniz's service to the Elector soon followed a diplomatic role. He published an essay, under the pseudonym of a fictitious Polish nobleman, arguing (unsuccessfully) for the German candidate for the Polish crown. The main European geopolitical reality during Leibniz's adult life was the ambition of Louis XIV of France, backed by French military and economic might. Meanwhile, the Thirty Years' War had left German-speaking Europe exhausted, fragmented, and economically backward. Leibniz proposed to protect German-speaking Europe by distracting Louis as follows. France would be invited to take Egypt as a stepping stone towards an eventual conquest of the Dutch East Indies. In return, France would agree to leave Germany and the Netherlands undisturbed. This plan obtained the Elector's cautious support. In 1672, the French government invited Leibniz to Paris for discussion, but the plan was soon overtaken by the outbreak of the Franco-Dutch War and became irrelevant. Napoleon's failed invasion of Egypt in 1798 can be seen as an unwitting implementation of Leibniz's plan.

Thus Leibniz began several years in Paris. Soon after arriving, he met Dutch physicist and mathematician Christiaan Huygens and realised that his own knowledge of mathematics and physics was patchy. With Huygens as mentor, he began a program of self-study that soon pushed him to making major contributions to both subjects, including inventing his version of the differential and integral calculus. He met Nicolas Malebranche and Antoine Arnauld, the leading French philosophers of the day, and studied the writings of Descartes and Pascal, unpublished as well as published. He befriended a German mathematician, Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus; they corresponded for the rest of their lives. In 1675 he was admitted as a foreign honorary member of the French Academy of Sciences, which he continued to follow mostly by correspondence.

When it became clear that France would not implement its part of Leibniz's Egyptian plan, the Elector sent his nephew, escorted by Leibniz, on a related mission to the English government in London, early in 1673. There Leibniz came into acquaintance of Henry Oldenburg and John Collins. After demonstrating a calculating machine he had been designing and building since 1670 to the Royal Society, the first such machine that could execute all four basic arithmetical operations, the Society made him an external member. The mission ended abruptly when news reached it of the Elector's death, whereupon Leibniz promptly returned to Paris and not, as had been planned, to Mainz.

The sudden deaths of Leibniz's two patrons in the same winter meant that Leibniz had to find a new basis for his career. In this regard, a 1669 invitation from the Duke of Brunswick to visit Hanover proved fateful. Leibniz declined the invitation, but began corresponding with the Duke in 1671. In 1673, the Duke offered him the post of Counsellor which Leibniz very reluctantly accepted two years later, only after it became clear that no employment in Paris, whose intellectual stimulation he relished, or with the Habsburg imperial court was forthcoming.

House of Hanover, 1676–1716

Leibniz managed to delay his arrival in Hanover until the end of 1676, after making one more short journey to London, where he possibly was shown some of Newton's unpublished work on the calculus. This fact was deemed evidence supporting the accusation, made decades later, that he had stolen the calculus from Newton. On the journey from London to Hanover, Leibniz stopped in The Hague where he met Leeuwenhoek, the discoverer of microorganisms. He also spent several days in intense discussion with Spinoza, who had just completed his masterwork, the ''Ethics''. Leibniz respected Spinoza's powerful intellect, but was dismayed by his conclusions that contradicted both Christian and Jewish orthodoxy.

In 1677, he was promoted, at his request, to Privy Counselor of Justice, a post he held for the rest of his life. Leibniz served three consecutive rulers of the House of Brunswick as historian, political adviser, and most consequentially, as librarian of the ducal library. He thenceforth employed his pen on all the various political, historical, and theological matters involving the House of Brunswick; the resulting documents form a valuable part of the historical record for the period.

Among the few people in north Germany to accept Leibniz were the Electress Sophia of Hanover (1630–1714), her daughter Sophia Charlotte of Hanover (1668–1705), the Queen of Prussia and his avowed disciple, and Caroline of Ansbach, the consort of her grandson, the future George II. To each of these women he was correspondent, adviser, and friend. In turn, they all approved of Leibniz more than did their spouses and the future king George I of Great Britain.

The population of Hanover was only about 10,000, and its provinciality eventually grated on Leibniz. Nevertheless, to be a major courtier to the House of Brunswick was quite an honor, especially in light of the meteoric rise in the prestige of that House during Leibniz's association with it. In 1692, the Duke of Brunswick became a hereditary Elector of the Holy Roman Empire. The British Act of Settlement 1701 designated the Electress Sophia and her descent as the royal family of England, once both King William III and his sister-in-law and successor, Queen Anne, were dead. Leibniz played a role in the initiatives and negotiations leading up to that Act, but not always an effective one. For example, something he published anonymously in England, thinking to promote the Brunswick cause, was formally censured by the British Parliament.

The Brunswicks tolerated the enormous effort Leibniz devoted to intellectual pursuits unrelated to his duties as a courtier, pursuits such as perfecting the calculus, writing about other mathematics, logic, physics, and philosophy, and keeping up a vast correspondence. He began working on the calculus in 1674; the earliest evidence of its use in his surviving notebooks is 1675. By 1677 he had a coherent system in hand, but did not publish it until 1684. Leibniz's most important mathematical papers were published between 1682 and 1692, usually in a journal which he and Otto Mencke founded in 1682, the ''Acta Eruditorum''. That journal played a key role in advancing his mathematical and scientific reputation, which in turn enhanced his eminence in diplomacy, history, theology, and philosophy.

The Elector Ernest Augustus commissioned Leibniz to write a history of the House of Brunswick, going back to the time of Charlemagne or earlier, hoping that the resulting book would advance his dynastic ambitions. From 1687 to 1690, Leibniz traveled extensively in Germany, Austria, and Italy, seeking and finding archival materials bearing on this project. Decades went by but no history appeared; the next Elector became quite annoyed at Leibniz's apparent dilatoriness. Leibniz never finished the project, in part because of his huge output on many other fronts, but also because he insisted on writing a meticulously researched and erudite book based on archival sources, when his patrons would have been quite happy with a short popular book, one perhaps little more than a genealogy with commentary, to be completed in three years or less. They never knew that he had in fact carried out a fair part of his assigned task: when the material Leibniz had written and collected for his history of the House of Brunswick was finally published in the 19th century, it filled three volumes.

In 1711, John Keill, writing in the journal of the Royal Society and with Newton's presumed blessing, accused Leibniz of having plagiarized Newton's calculus. Thus began the calculus priority dispute which darkened the remainder of Leibniz's life. A formal investigation by the Royal Society (in which Newton was an unacknowledged participant), undertaken in response to Leibniz's demand for a retraction, upheld Keill's charge. Historians of mathematics writing since 1900 or so have tended to acquit Leibniz, pointing to important differences between Leibniz's and Newton's versions of the calculus.

In 1711, while traveling in northern Europe, the Russian Tsar Peter the Great stopped in Hanover and met Leibniz, who then took some interest in Russian matters for the rest of his life. In 1712, Leibniz began a two-year residence in Vienna, where he was appointed Imperial Court Councillor to the Habsburgs. On the death of Queen Anne in 1714, Elector George Louis became King George I of Great Britain, under the terms of the 1701 Act of Settlement. Even though Leibniz had done much to bring about this happy event, it was not to be his hour of glory. Despite the intercession of the Princess of Wales, Caroline of Ansbach, George I forbade Leibniz to join him in London until he completed at least one volume of the history of the Brunswick family his father had commissioned nearly 30 years earlier. Moreover, for George I to include Leibniz in his London court would have been deemed insulting to Newton, who was seen as having won the calculus priority dispute and whose standing in British official circles could not have been higher. Finally, his dear friend and defender, the Dowager Electress Sophia, died in 1714.

Death

Leibniz died in Hanover in 1716: at the time, he was so out of favor that neither George I (who happened to be near Hanover at the time) nor any fellow courtier other than his personal secretary attended the funeral. Even though Leibniz was a life member of the Royal Society and the Berlin Academy of Sciences, neither organization saw fit to honor his passing. His grave went unmarked for more than 50 years. Leibniz was eulogized by Fontenelle, before the Academie des Sciences in Paris, which had admitted him as a foreign member in 1700. The eulogy was composed at the behest of the Duchess of Orleans, a niece of the Electress Sophia.

Personal life

Leibniz never married. He complained on occasion about money, but the fair sum he left to his sole heir, his sister's stepson, proved that the Brunswicks had, by and large, paid him well. In his diplomatic endeavors, he at times verged on the unscrupulous, as was all too often the case with professional diplomats of his day. On several occasions, Leibniz backdated and altered personal manuscripts, actions which put him in a bad light during the calculus controversy. On the other hand, he was charming, well-mannered, and not without humor and imagination. He had many friends and admirers all over Europe.

Philosopher

Leibniz's philosophical thinking appears fragmented, because his philosophical writings consist mainly of a multitude of short pieces: journal articles, manuscripts published long after his death, and many letters to many correspondents. He wrote only two philosophical treatises, of which only the ''Théodicée'' of 1710 was published in his lifetime.

Leibniz dated his beginning as a philosopher to his ''Discourse on Metaphysics'', which he composed in 1686 as a commentary on a running dispute between Nicolas Malebranche and Antoine Arnauld. This led to an extensive and valuable correspondence with Arnauld; it and the ''Discourse'' were not published until the 19th century. In 1695, Leibniz made his public entrée into European philosophy with a journal article titled "New System of the Nature and Communication of Substances". Between 1695 and 1705, he composed his ''New Essays on Human Understanding'', a lengthy commentary on John Locke's 1690 ''An Essay Concerning Human Understanding'', but upon learning of Locke's 1704 death, lost the desire to publish it, so that the ''New Essays'' were not published until 1765. The ''Monadologie'', composed in 1714 and published posthumously, consists of 90 aphorisms.

Leibniz met Spinoza in 1676, read some of his unpublished writings, and has since been suspected of appropriating some of Spinoza's ideas. While Leibniz admired Spinoza's powerful intellect, he was also forthrightly dismayed by Spinoza's conclusions, especially when these were inconsistent with Christian orthodoxy.

Unlike Descartes and Spinoza, Leibniz had a thorough university education in philosophy. His lifelong scholastic and Aristotelian turn of mind betrayed the strong influence of one of his Leipzig professors, Jakob Thomasius, who also supervised his BA thesis in philosophy. Leibniz also eagerly read Francisco Suárez, a Spanish Jesuit respected even in Lutheran universities. Leibniz was deeply interested in the new methods and conclusions of Descartes, Huygens, Newton, and Boyle, but viewed their work through a lens heavily tinted by scholastic notions. Yet it remains the case that Leibniz's methods and concerns often anticipate the logic, and analytic and linguistic philosophy of the 20th century.

The Principles

Leibniz variously invoked one or another of seven fundamental philosophical Principles:

Identity/contradiction. If a proposition is true, then its negation is false and vice versa.

Identity of indiscernibles. Two things are identical if and only if they share the same and only the same properties. Frequently invoked in modern logic and philosophy. The "identity of indiscernibles" is often referred to as Leibniz's Law. It has attracted the most controversy and criticism, especially from corpuscular philosophy and quantum mechanics.

Sufficient reason. "There must be a sufficient reason [often known only to God] for anything to exist, for any event to occur, for any truth to obtain." Pre-established harmony. "[T]he appropriate nature of each substance brings it about that what happens to one corresponds to what happens to all the others, without, however, their acting upon one another directly." (''Discourse on Metaphysics'', XIV) A dropped glass shatters because it "knows" it has hit the ground, and not because the impact with the ground "compels" the glass to split.

Law of Continuity. ''Natura non saltum facit''. A mathematical analog to this principle would proceed as follows: if a function describes a transformation of something to which continuity applies, then its domain and range are both dense sets.

Optimism. "God assuredly always chooses the best."

Plenitude. "Leibniz believed that the best of all possible worlds would actualize every genuine possibility, and argued in Théodicée that this best of all possible worlds will contain all possibilities, with our finite experience of eternity giving no reason to dispute nature's perfection."

Leibniz would on occasion give a speech for a specific principle, but more often took them for granted.

The monads

Leibniz's best known contribution to metaphysics is his theory of monads, as exposited in ''Monadologie''. Monads are to the metaphysical realm what atoms are to the physical/phenomenal. They can also be compared to the corpuscles of the Mechanical Philosophy of René Descartes and others. Monads are the ultimate elements of the universe. The monads are "substantial forms of being" with the following properties: they are eternal, indecomposable, individual, subject to their own laws, un-interacting, and each reflecting the entire universe in a pre-established harmony (a historically important example of panpsychism). Monads are centers of force; substance is force, while space, matter, and motion are merely phenomenal.

The ontological essence of a monad is its irreducible simplicity. Unlike atoms, monads possess no material or spatial character. They also differ from atoms by their complete mutual independence, so that interactions among monads are only apparent. Instead, by virtue of the principle of pre-established harmony, each monad follows a preprogrammed set of "instructions" peculiar to itself, so that a monad "knows" what to do at each moment. (These "instructions" may be seen as analogs of the scientific laws governing subatomic particles.) By virtue of these intrinsic instructions, each monad is like a little mirror of the universe. Monads need not be "small"; e.g., each human being constitutes a monad, in which case free will is problematic. God, too, is a monad, and the existence of God can be inferred from the harmony prevailing among all other monads; God wills the pre-established harmony.

Monads are purported to having gotten rid of the problematic:

Interaction between mind and matter arising in the system of Descartes;

Lack of individuation inherent to the system of Spinoza, which represents individual creatures as merely accidental.

Theodicy and optimism

(Note that the word "optimism" here is used in the classic sense of optimal, not in the mood-related sense, as being positively hopeful.)

The ''Theodicy'' tries to justify the apparent imperfections of the world by claiming that it is optimal among all possible worlds. It must be the best possible and most balanced world, because it was created by an all powerful and all knowing God, who would not choose to create an imperfect world if a better world could be known to him or possible to exist. In effect, apparent flaws that can be identified in this world must exist in every possible world, because otherwise God would have chosen to create the world that excluded those flaws.

Leibniz asserted that the truths of theology (religion) and philosophy cannot contradict each other, since reason and faith are both "gifts of God" so that their conflict would imply God contending against himself. The ''Theodicy'' is Leibniz's attempt to reconcile his personal philosophical system with his interpretation of the tenets of Christianity. This project was motivated in part by Leibniz's belief, shared by many conservative philosophers and theologians during the Enlightenment, in the rational and enlightened nature of the Christian religion, at least as this was defined in tendentious comparisons between Christian and non Western or "primitive" religious practices and beliefs. It was also shaped by Leibniz's belief in the perfectibility of human nature (if humanity relied on correct philosophy and religion as a guide), and by his belief that metaphysical necessity must have a rational or logical foundation, even if this metaphysical causality seemed inexplicable in terms of physical necessity (the natural laws identified by science).

Because reason and faith must be entirely reconciled, any tenet of faith which could not be defended by reason must be rejected. Leibniz then approached one of the central criticisms of Christian theism: if God is all good, all wise and all powerful, how did evil come into the world? The answer (according to Leibniz) is that, while God is indeed unlimited in wisdom and power, his human creations, as creations, are limited both in their wisdom and in their will (power to act). This predisposes humans to false beliefs, wrong decisions and ineffective actions in the exercise of their free will. God does not arbitrarily inflict pain and suffering on humans; rather he permits both ''moral evil'' (sin) and ''physical evil'' (pain and suffering) as the necessary consequences of ''metaphysical evil'' (imperfection), as a means by which humans can identify and correct their erroneous decisions, and as a contrast to true good.

Further, although human actions flow from prior causes that ultimately arise in God, and therefore are known as a metaphysical certainty to God, an individual's free will is exercised within natural laws, where choices are merely contingently necessary, to be decided in the event by a "wonderful spontaneity" that provides individuals an escape from rigorous predestination.

The ''Theodicy'' was deemed illogical by the philosopher Bertrand Russell. Russell points out that moral and physical evil must result from metaphysical evil (imperfection). But imperfection is merely finitude or limitation; if existence is good, as Leibniz maintains, then the mere existence of evil requires that evil also be good. In addition, Christian theology defines sin as not necessary but contingent, the result of free will. Russell maintains that Leibniz failed logically to show that metaphysical necessity (divine will) and human free will are not incompatible or contradictory.

The mathematician Paul du Bois-Reymond, in his "Leibnizian Thoughts in Modern Science", wrote that Leibniz thought of God as a mathematician:

As is well known, the theory of the maxima and minima of functions was indebted to him for the greatest progress through the discovery of the method of tangents. Well, he conceives God in the creation of the world like a mathematician who is solving a minimum problem, or rather, in our modern phraseology, a problem in the calculus of variations the question being to determine among an infinite number of possible worlds, that for which the sum of necessary evil is a minimum.

The statement that "we live in the best of all possible worlds" drew scorn, most notably from Voltaire, who lampooned it in his comic novella ''Candide'' by having the character Dr. Pangloss (a parody of Leibniz and Maupertuis) repeat it like a mantra. From this, the adjective "Panglossian" describes a person who believes that the world about us is the best possible one.

Symbolic thought

Leibniz believed that much of human reasoning could be reduced to calculations of a sort, and that such calculations could resolve many differences of opinion:

The only way to rectify our reasonings is to make them as tangible as those of the Mathematicians, so that we can find our error at a glance, and when there are disputes among persons, we can simply say: Let us calculate [''calculemus''], without further ado, to see who is right.

Leibniz's calculus ratiocinator, which resembles symbolic logic, can be viewed as a way of making such calculations feasible. Leibniz wrote memoranda that can now be read as groping attempts to get symbolic logic—and thus his ''calculus''—off the ground. But Gerhard and Couturat did not publish these writings until modern formal logic had emerged in Frege's ''Begriffsschrift'' and in writings by Charles Sanders Peirce and his students in the 1880s, and hence well after Boole and De Morgan began that logic in 1847.

Leibniz thought symbols were important for human understanding. He attached so much importance to the invention of good notations that he attributed all his discoveries in mathematics to this. His notation for the infinitesimal calculus is an example of his skill in this regard. C.S. Peirce, a 19th-century pioneer of semiotics, shared Leibniz's passion for symbols and notation, and his belief that these are essential to a well-running logic and mathematics.

But Leibniz took his speculations much further. Defining a character as any written sign, he then defined a "real" character as one that represents an idea directly and not simply as the word embodying the idea. Some real characters, such as the notation of logic, serve only to facilitate reasoning. Many characters well known in his day, including Egyptian hieroglyphics, Chinese characters, and the symbols of astronomy and chemistry, he deemed not real. Instead, he proposed the creation of a ''characteristica universalis'' or "universal characteristic", built on an alphabet of human thought in which each fundamental concept would be represented by a unique "real" character:

It is obvious that if we could find characters or signs suited for expressing all our thoughts as clearly and as exactly as arithmetic expresses numbers or geometry expresses lines, we could do in all matters ''insofar as they are subject to reasoning'' all that we can do in arithmetic and geometry. For all investigations which depend on reasoning would be carried out by transposing these characters and by a species of calculus.

Complex thoughts would be represented by combining characters for simpler thoughts. Leibniz saw that the uniqueness of prime factorization suggests a central role for prime numbers in the universal characteristic, a striking anticipation of Gödel numbering. Granted, there is no intuitive or mnemonic way to number any set of elementary concepts using the prime numbers. Leibniz's idea of reasoning through a universal language of symbols and calculations however remarkably foreshadows great 20th century developments in formal systems, such as Turing completeness, where computation was used to define equivalent universal languages (see Turing degree).

Because Leibniz was a mathematical novice when he first wrote about the ''characteristic'', at first he did not conceive it as an algebra but rather as a universal language or script. Only in 1676 did he conceive of a kind of "algebra of thought", modeled on and including conventional algebra and its notation. The resulting ''characteristic'' included a logical calculus, some combinatorics, algebra, his ''analysis situs'' (geometry of situation), a universal concept language, and more.

What Leibniz actually intended by his ''characteristica universalis'' and calculus ratiocinator, and the extent to which modern formal logic does justice to the calculus, may never be established.

Formal logic

Leibniz is the most important logician between Aristotle and 1847, when George Boole and Augustus De Morgan each published books that began modern formal logic. Leibniz enunciated the principal properties of what we now call conjunction, disjunction, negation, identity, set inclusion, and the empty set. The principles of Leibniz's logic and, arguably, of his whole philosophy, reduce to two:

#All our ideas are compounded from a very small number of simple ideas, which form the alphabet of human thought. #Complex ideas proceed from these simple ideas by a uniform and symmetrical combination, analogous to arithmetical multiplication.

With regard to the first point, the number of simple ideas is much greater than Leibniz thought. As for the second, logic can indeed be grounded in a symmetrical combining operation, but that operation is analogous to either of addition or multiplication. The formal logic that emerged early in the 20th century also requires, at minimum, unary negation and quantified variables ranging over some universe of discourse.

Leibniz published nothing on formal logic in his lifetime; most of what he wrote on the subject consists of working drafts. In his book ''History of Western Philosophy'', Bertrand Russell went so far as to claim that Leibniz had developed logic in his unpublished writings to a level which was reached only 200 years later.

Mathematician

Although the mathematical notion of function was implicit in trigonometric and logarithmic tables, which existed in his day, Leibniz was the first, in 1692 and 1694, to employ it explicitly, to denote any of several geometric concepts derived from a curve, such as abscissa, ordinate, tangent, chord, and the perpendicular. In the 18th century, "function" lost these geometrical associations.

Leibniz was the first to see that the coefficients of a system of linear equations could be arranged into an array, now called a matrix, which can be manipulated to find the solution of the system, if any. This method was later called Gaussian elimination. Leibniz's discoveries of Boolean algebra and of symbolic logic, also relevant to mathematics, are discussed in the preceding section. A detailed treatment of Leibniz's writings on the calculus may be found in Bos (1974).

Calculus

Leibniz is credited, along with Sir Isaac Newton, with the inventing of infinitesimal calculus (that comprises differential and integral calculus). According to Leibniz's notebooks, a critical breakthrough occurred on November 11, 1675, when he employed integral calculus for the first time to find the area under the graph of a function ''y'' = ''ƒ''(''x''). He introduced several notations used to this day, for instance the integral sign ∫ representing an elongated S, from the Latin word ''summa'' and the ''d'' used for differentials, from the Latin word ''differentia''. This cleverly suggestive notation for the calculus is probably his most enduring mathematical legacy. Leibniz did not publish anything about his calculus until 1684. The product rule of differential calculus is still called "Leibniz's law". In addition, the theorem that tells how and when to differentiate under the integral sign is called the Leibniz integral rule.

Leibniz's approach to the calculus fell well short of later standards of rigor (the same can be said of Newton's). We now see a Leibniz proof as being in truth mostly a heuristic argument mainly grounded in geometric intuition. Leibniz also freely invoked mathematical entities he called infinitesimals, manipulating them in ways suggesting that they had paradoxical algebraic properties. George Berkeley, in a tract called ''The Analyst'' and elsewhere, ridiculed this and other aspects of the early calculus, pointing out that natural science grounded in the calculus required just as big of a leap of faith as theology grounded in Christian revelation.

From 1711 until his death, Leibniz's life was envenomed by a long dispute with John Keill, Newton, and others, over whether Leibniz had invented the calculus independently of Newton, or whether he had merely invented another notation for ideas that were fundamentally Newton's.

Modern, rigorous calculus emerged in the 19th century, thanks to the efforts of Augustin Louis Cauchy, Bernhard Riemann, Karl Weierstrass, and others, who based their work on the definition of a limit and on a precise understanding of real numbers. While Cauchy still used infinitesimals as a foundational concept for the calculus, following Weierstrass they were gradually eliminated from calculus, though continued to be studied outside of analysis. Infinitesimals survived in science and engineering, and even in rigorous mathematics, via the fundamental computational device known as the differential. Beginning in 1960, Abraham Robinson worked out a rigorous foundation for Leibniz's infinitesimals, using model theory. The resulting non-standard analysis can be seen as a belated vindication of Leibniz's mathematical reasoning.

Topology

Leibniz was the first to use the term ''analysis situs'', later used in the 19th century to refer to what is now known as topology. There are two takes on this situation. On the one hand, Mates, citing a 1954 paper in German by Jacob Freudenthal, argues:

Although for Leibniz the situs of a sequence of points is completely determined by the distance between them and is altered if those distances are altered, his admirer Euler, in the famous 1736 paper solving the Königsberg Bridge Problem and its generalizations, used the term ''geometria situs'' in such a sense that the situs remains unchanged under topological deformations. He mistakenly credits Leibniz with originating this concept. ...it is sometimes not realized that Leibniz used the term in an entirely different sense and hence can hardly be considered the founder of that part of mathematics.

But Hideaki Hirano argues differently, quoting Mandelbrot:

To sample Leibniz' scientific works is a sobering experience. Next to calculus, and to other thoughts that have been carried out to completion, the number and variety of premonitory thrusts is overwhelming. We saw examples in 'packing,'... My Leibniz mania is further reinforced by finding that for one moment its hero attached importance to geometric scaling. In "Euclidis Prota"..., which is an attempt to tighten Euclid's axioms, he states,...: 'I have diverse definitions for the straight line. The straight line is a curve, any part of which is similar to the whole, and it alone has this property, not only among curves but among sets.' This claim can be proved today.

Thus the fractal geometry promoted by Mandelbrot drew on Leibniz's notions of self-similarity and the principle of continuity: natura non facit saltus. We also see that when Leibniz wrote, in a metaphysical vein, that "the straight line is a curve, any part of which is similar to the whole", he was anticipating topology by more than two centuries. As for "packing", Leibniz told to his friend and correspondent Des Bosses to imagine a circle, then to inscribe within it three congruent circles with maximum radius; the latter smaller circles could be filled with three even smaller circles by the same procedure. This process can be continued infinitely, from which arises a good idea of self-similarity. Leibniz's improvement of Euclid's axiom contains the same concept.

Scientist and engineer

Leibniz's writings are currently discussed, not only for their anticipations and possible discoveries not yet recognized, but as ways of advancing present knowledge. Much of his writing on physics is included in Gerhardt's ''Mathematical Writings''.

Physics

Leibniz contributed a fair amount to the statics and dynamics emerging about him, often disagreeing with Descartes and Newton. He devised a new theory of motion (dynamics) based on kinetic energy and potential energy, which posited space as relative, whereas Newton felt strongly space was absolute. An important example of Leibniz's mature physical thinking is his ''Specimen Dynamicum'' of 1695.

Until the discovery of subatomic particles and the quantum mechanics governing them, many of Leibniz's speculative ideas about aspects of nature not reducible to statics and dynamics made little sense. For instance, he anticipated Albert Einstein by arguing, against Newton, that space, time and motion are relative, not absolute. Leibniz's rule is an important, if often overlooked, step in many proofs in diverse fields of physics. The principle of sufficient reason has been invoked in recent cosmology, and his identity of indiscernibles in quantum mechanics, a field some even credit him with having anticipated in some sense. Those who advocate digital philosophy, a recent direction in cosmology, claim Leibniz as a precursor.

The ''vis viva''

Leibniz's ''vis viva'' (Latin for ''living force'') is ''mv''², twice the modern kinetic energy. He realized that the total energy would be conserved in certain mechanical systems, so he considered it an innate motive characteristic of matter. Here too his thinking gave rise to another regrettable nationalistic dispute. His ''vis viva'' was seen as rivaling the conservation of momentum championed by Newton in England and by Descartes in France; hence academics in those countries tended to neglect Leibniz's idea. In reality, both energy and momentum are conserved, so the two approaches are equally valid.

Other natural science

By proposing that the earth has a molten core, he anticipated modern geology. In embryology, he was a preformationist, but also proposed that organisms are the outcome of a combination of an infinite number of possible microstructures and of their powers. In the life sciences and paleontology, he revealed an amazing transformist intuition, fueled by his study of comparative anatomy and fossils. One of his principal works on this subject, ''Protogaea'', unpublished in his lifetime, has recently been published in English for the first time. He worked out a primal organismic theory. In medicine, he exhorted the physicians of his time—with some results—to ground their theories in detailed comparative observations and verified experiments, and to distinguish firmly scientific and metaphysical points of view.

Social science

In psychology, he anticipated the distinction between conscious and unconscious states. In public health, he advocated establishing a medical administrative authority, with powers over epidemiology and veterinary medicine. He worked to set up a coherent medical training programme, oriented towards public health and preventive measures. In economic policy, he proposed tax reforms and a national insurance scheme, and discussed the balance of trade. He even proposed something akin to what much later emerged as game theory. In sociology he laid the ground for communication theory.

Technology

In 1906, Garland published a volume of Leibniz's writings bearing on his many practical inventions and engineering work. To date, few of these writings have been translated into English. Nevertheless, it is well understood that Leibniz was a serious inventor, engineer, and applied scientist, with great respect for practical life. Following the motto ''theoria cum praxis'', he urged that theory be combined with practical application, and thus has been claimed as the father of applied science. He designed wind-driven propellers and water pumps, mining machines to extract ore, hydraulic presses, lamps, submarines, clocks, etc. With Denis Papin, he invented a steam engine. He even proposed a method for desalinating water. From 1680 to 1685, he struggled to overcome the chronic flooding that afflicted the ducal silver mines in the Harz Mountains, but did not succeed.

Computation

Leibniz may have been the first computer scientist and information theorist. Early in life, he documented the binary numeral system (base 2), then revisited that system throughout his career. He anticipated Lagrangian interpolation and algorithmic information theory. His calculus ratiocinator anticipated aspects of the universal Turing machine. In 1934, Norbert Wiener claimed to have found in Leibniz's writings a mention of the concept of feedback, central to Wiener's later cybernetic theory.

In 1671, Leibniz began to invent a machine that could execute all four arithmetical operations, gradually improving it over a number of years. This "Stepped Reckoner" attracted fair attention and was the basis of his election to the Royal Society in 1673. A number of such machines were made during his years in Hanover, by a craftsman working under Leibniz's supervision. It was not an unambiguous success because it did not fully mechanize the operation of carrying. Couturat reported finding an unpublished note by Leibniz, dated 1674, describing a machine capable of performing some algebraic operations.

Leibniz was groping towards hardware and software concepts worked out much later by Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace. In 1679, while mulling over his binary arithmetic, Leibniz imagined a machine in which binary numbers were represented by marbles, governed by a rudimentary sort of punched cards. Modern electronic digital computers replace Leibniz's marbles moving by gravity with shift registers, voltage gradients, and pulses of electrons, but otherwise they run roughly as Leibniz envisioned in 1679.

Librarian

While serving as librarian of the ducal libraries in Hanover and Wolfenbuettel, Leibniz effectively became one of the founders of library science. The latter library was enormous for its day, as it contained more than 100,000 volumes, and Leibniz helped design a new building for it, believed to be the first building explicitly designed to be a library. He also designed a book indexing system in ignorance of the only other such system then extant, that of the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. He also called on publishers to distribute abstracts of all new titles they produced each year, in a standard form that would facilitate indexing. He hoped that this abstracting project would eventually include everything printed from his day back to Gutenberg. Neither proposal met with success at the time, but something like them became standard practice among English language publishers during the 20th century, under the aegis of the Library of Congress and the British Library.

He called for the creation of an empirical database as a way to further all sciences. His characteristica universalis, calculus ratiocinator, and a "community of minds"—intended, among other things, to bring political and religious unity to Europe—can be seen as distant unwitting anticipations of artificial languages (e.g., Esperanto and its rivals), symbolic logic, even the World Wide Web.

Advocate of scientific societies

Leibniz emphasized that research was a collaborative endeavor. Hence he warmly advocated the formation of national scientific societies along the lines of the British Royal Society and the French Academie Royale des Sciences. More specifically, in his correspondence and travels he urged the creation of such societies in Dresden, Saint Petersburg, Vienna, and Berlin. Only one such project came to fruition; in 1700, the Berlin Academy of Sciences was created. Leibniz drew up its first statutes, and served as its first President for the remainder of his life. That Academy evolved into the German Academy of Sciences, the publisher of the ongoing critical edition of his works.

Lawyer, moralist

With the possible exception of Marcus Aurelius, no philosopher has ever had as much experience with practical affairs of state as Leibniz. Leibniz's writings on law, ethics, and politics were long overlooked by English-speaking scholars, but this has changed of late.

While Leibniz was no apologist for absolute monarchy like Hobbes, or for tyranny in any form, neither did he echo the political and constitutional views of his contemporary John Locke, views invoked in support of democracy, in 18th-century America and later elsewhere. The following excerpt from a 1695 letter to Baron J. C. Boineburg's son Philipp is very revealing of Leibniz's political sentiments:

As for.. the great question of the power of sovereigns and the obedience their peoples owe them, I usually say that it would be good for princes to be persuaded that their people have the right to resist them, and for the people, on the other hand, to be persuaded to obey them passively. I am, however, quite of the opinion of Grotius, that one ought to obey as a rule, the evil of revolution being greater beyond comparison than the evils causing it. Yet I recognize that a prince can go to such excess, and place the well-being of the state in such danger, that the obligation to endure ceases. This is most rare, however, and the theologian who authorizes violence under this pretext should take care against excess; excess being infinitely more dangerous than deficiency.

In 1677, Leibniz called for a European confederation, governed by a council or senate, whose members would represent entire nations and would be free to vote their consciences; in doing so, he anticipated the European Union. He believed that Europe would adopt a uniform religion. He reiterated these proposals in 1715.

Ecumenism

Leibniz devoted considerable intellectual and diplomatic effort to what would now be called ecumenical endeavor, seeking to reconcile first the Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches, later the Lutheran and Reformed churches. In this respect, he followed the example of his early patrons, Baron von Boineburg and the Duke John Frederick—both cradle Lutherans who converted to Catholicism as adults—who did what they could to encourage the reunion of the two faiths, and who warmly welcomed such endeavors by others. (The House of Brunswick remained Lutheran because the Duke's children did not follow their father.) These efforts included corresponding with the French bishop Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, and involved Leibniz in a fair bit of theological controversy. He evidently thought that the thoroughgoing application of reason would suffice to heal the breach caused by the Reformation.

Philologist

Leibniz the philologist was an avid student of languages, eagerly latching on to any information about vocabulary and grammar that came his way. He refuted the belief, widely held by Christian scholars in his day, that Hebrew was the primeval language of the human race. He also refuted the argument, advanced by Swedish scholars in his day, that a form of proto-Swedish was the ancestor of the Germanic languages. He puzzled over the origins of the Slavic languages, was aware of the existence of Sanskrit, and was fascinated by classical Chinese.

He published the ''princeps editio'' (first modern edition) of the late medieval ''Chronicon Holtzatiae'', a Latin chronicle of the County of Holstein.

Sinophile

Leibniz was perhaps the first major European intellect to take a close interest in Chinese civilization, which he knew by corresponding with, and reading other works by, European Christian missionaries posted in China. He concluded that Europeans could learn much from the Confucian ethical tradition. He mulled over the possibility that the Chinese characters were an unwitting form of his universal characteristic. He noted with fascination how the ''I Ching'' hexagrams correspond to the binary numbers from 0 to 111111, and concluded that this mapping was evidence of major Chinese accomplishments in the sort of philosophical mathematics he admired.

As polymath

While making his grand tour of European archives to research the Brunswick family history that he never completed, Leibniz stopped in Vienna between May 1688 and February 1689, where he did much legal and diplomatic work for the Brunswicks. He visited mines, talked with mine engineers, and tried to negotiate export contracts for lead from the ducal mines in the Harz mountains. His proposal that the streets of Vienna be lit with lamps burning rapeseed oil was implemented. During a formal audience with the Austrian Emperor and in subsequent memoranda, he advocated reorganizing the Austrian economy, reforming the coinage of much of central Europe, negotiating a Concordat between the Habsburgs and the Vatican, and creating an imperial research library, official archive, and public insurance fund. He wrote and published an important paper on mechanics.

Leibniz also wrote a short paper, first published by Louis Couturat in 1903, summarizing his views on metaphysics. The paper is undated; that he wrote it while in Vienna was determined only in 1999, when the ongoing critical edition finally published Leibniz's philosophical writings for the period 1677–90. Couturat's reading of this paper was the launching point for much 20th-century thinking about Leibniz, especially among analytic philosophers. But after a meticulous study of all of Leibniz's philosophical writings up to 1688—a study the 1999 additions to the critical edition made possible—Mercer (2001) begged to differ with Couturat's reading; the jury is still out.

Posthumous reputation

As a mathematician and philosopher

When Leibniz died, his reputation was in decline. He was remembered for only one book, the ''Théodicée'', whose supposed central argument Voltaire lampooned in his ''Candide''. Voltaire's depiction of Leibniz's ideas was so influential that many believed it to be an accurate description. Thus Voltaire and his ''Candide'' bear some of the blame for the lingering failure to appreciate and understand Leibniz's ideas. Leibniz had an ardent disciple, Christian Wolff, whose dogmatic and facile outlook did Leibniz's reputation much harm. He also influenced David Hume who read his ''Théodicée'' and used some of his ideas. In any event, philosophical fashion was moving away from the rationalism and system building of the 17th century, of which Leibniz had been such an ardent proponent. His work on law, diplomacy, and history was seen as of ephemeral interest. The vastness and richness of his correspondence went unrecognized.

Much of Europe came to doubt that Leibniz had discovered the calculus independently of Newton, and hence his whole work in mathematics and physics was neglected. Voltaire, an admirer of Newton, also wrote ''Candide'' at least in part to discredit Leibniz's claim to having discovered the calculus and Leibniz's charge that Newton's theory of universal gravitation was incorrect. The rise of relativity and subsequent work in the history of mathematics has put Leibniz's stance in a more favorable light.

Leibniz's long march to his present glory began with the 1765 publication of the ''Nouveaux Essais'', which Kant read closely. In 1768, Dutens edited the first multi-volume edition of Leibniz's writings, followed in the 19th century by a number of editions, including those edited by Erdmann, Foucher de Careil, Gerhardt, Gerland, Klopp, and Mollat. Publication of Leibniz's correspondence with notables such as Antoine Arnauld, Samuel Clarke, Sophia of Hanover, and her daughter Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, began.

In 1900, Bertrand Russell published a critical study of Leibniz's metaphysics. Shortly thereafter, Louis Couturat published an important study of Leibniz, and edited a volume of Leibniz's heretofore unpublished writings, mainly on logic. They made Leibniz somewhat respectable among 20th-century analytical and linguistic philosophers in the English-speaking world (Leibniz had already been of great influence to many Germans such as Bernhard Riemann). For example, Leibniz's phrase ''salva veritate'', meaning interchangeability without loss of or compromising the truth, recurs in Willard Quine's writings. Nevertheless, the secondary English-language literature on Leibniz did not really blossom until after World War II. This is especially true of English speaking countries; in Gregory Brown's bibliography fewer than 30 of the English language entries were published before 1946. American Leibniz studies owe much to Leroy Loemker (1904–85) through his translations and his interpretive essays in LeClerc (1973).

Nicholas Jolley has surmised that Leibniz's reputation as a philosopher is now perhaps higher than at any time since he was alive. Analytic and contemporary philosophy continue to invoke his notions of identity, individuation, and possible worlds, while the doctrinaire contempt for metaphysics, characteristic of analytic and linguistic philosophy, has faded. Work in the history of 17th- and 18th-century ideas has revealed more clearly the 17th-century "Intellectual Revolution" that preceded the better-known Industrial and commercial revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. The 17th- and 18th-century belief that natural science, especially physics, differs from philosophy mainly in degree and not in kind, is no longer dismissed out of hand. That modern science includes a "scholastic" as well as a "radical empiricist" element is more accepted now than in the early 20th century. Leibniz's thought is now seen as a major prolongation of the mighty endeavor begun by Plato and Aristotle: the universe and man's place in it are amenable to human reason.

In 1985, the German government created the Leibniz Prize, offering an annual award of 1.55 million euros for experimental results and 770,000 euros for theoretical ones. It is the world's largest prize for scientific achievement.

The collection of manuscript papers of Leibniz at the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek – Niedersächische Landesbibliothek were inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in 2007.

Leibniz biscuits

Leibniz-Keks, a popular brand of biscuits in Germany, are named after Gottfried Leibniz. These biscuits honour Leibniz because he was a resident of Hanover, where the company is based.

Writings and edition

Leibniz mainly wrote in three languages: scholastic Latin, French and German. During his lifetime, he published many pamphlets and scholarly articles, but only two "philosophical" books, the ''Combinatorial Art'' and the ''Théodicée''. (He published numerous pamphlets, often anonymous, on behalf of the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg, most notably the "De jure suprematum" a major consideration of the nature of sovereignty.) One substantial book appeared posthumously, his ''Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain'', which Leibniz had withheld from publication after the death of John Locke. Only in 1895, when Bodemann completed his catalogues of Leibniz's manuscripts and correspondence, did the enormous extent of Leibniz's ''Nachlass'' become clear: about 15,000 letters to more than 1000 recipients plus more than 40,000 other items. Moreover, quite a few of these letters are of essay length. Much of his vast correspondence, especially the letters dated after 1685, remains unpublished, and much of what is published has been so only in recent decades. The amount, variety, and disorder of Leibniz's writings are a predictable result of a situation he described in a letter as follows:

I cannot tell you how extraordinarily distracted and spread out I am. I am trying to find various things in the archives; I look at old papers and hunt up unpublished documents. From these I hope to shed some light on the history of the [House of] Brunswick. I receive and answer a huge number of letters. At the same time, I have so many mathematical results, philosophical thoughts, and other literary innovations that should not be allowed to vanish that I often do not know where to begin.

The extant parts of the critical edition of Leibniz's writings are organized as follows:

Series 1. ''Political, Historical, and General Correspondence''. 21 vols., 1666–1701.

Series 2. ''Philosophical Correspondence''. 1 vol., 1663–85.

Series 3. ''Mathematical, Scientific, and Technical Correspondence''. 6 vols., 1672–96.

Series 4. ''Political Writings''. 6 vols., 1667–98.

Series 5. ''Historical and Linguistic Writings''. Inactive.

Series 6. ''Philosophical Writings''. 7 vols., 1663–90, and ''Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain''.

Series 7. ''Mathematical Writings''. 3 vols., 1672–76.

Series 8. ''Scientific, Medical, and Technical Writings''. In preparation.

The systematic cataloguing of all of Leibniz's ''Nachlass'' began in 1901. It was hampered by two world wars, the Nazi dictatorship (with the Holocaust, which affected a Jewish employee of the project, and other personal consequences), and decades of German division (two states with the cold war's "iron curtain" in between, separating scholars and also scattering portions of his literary estates). The ambitious project has had to deal with seven languages contained in some 200,000 pages of written and printed paper. In 1985 it was reorganized and included in a joint program of German federal and state (''Länder'') academies. Since then the branches in Potsdam, Münster, Hannover and Berlin have jointly published 25 volumes of the critical edition, with an average of 870 pages, and prepared index and concordance works.

Selected works

The year given is usually that in which the work was completed, not of its eventual publication.

1666. ''De Arte Combinatoria'' (''On the Art of Combination''); partially translated in Loemker §1 and Parkinson (1966).

1671. ''Hypothesis Physica Nova'' (''New Physical Hypothesis''); Loemker §8.I (partial).

1673 ''Confessio philosophi'' (''A Philosopher's Creed''); an English translation is available.

1684. ''Nova methodus pro maximis et minimis'' (''New method for maximums and minimums''); translated in Struik, D. J., 1969. ''A Source Book in Mathematics, 1200–1800''. Harvard University Press: 271–81.

1686. ''Discours de métaphysique''; Martin and Brown (1988), Ariew and Garber 35, Loemker §35, Wiener III.3, Woolhouse and Francks 1. An online translation by Jonathan Bennett is available.

1703. ''Explication de l'Arithmétique Binaire'' (''Explanation of Binary Arithmetic''); Gerhardt, ''Mathematical Writings'' VII.223. An online translation by Lloyd Strickland is available.

1710. ''Théodicée''; Farrer, A.M., and Huggard, E.M., trans., 1985 (1952). Wiener III.11 (part). An online translation is available at Project Gutenberg.

1714. ''Monadologie''; translated by Nicholas Rescher, 1991. ''The Monadology: An Edition for Students''. University of Pittsburg Press. Ariew and Garber 213, Loemker §67, Wiener III.13, Woolhouse and Francks 19. Online translations: Jonathan Bennett's translation; Latta's translation; French, Latin and Spanish edition, with facsimile of Leibniz's manuscript.

1765. ''Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain''; completed in 1704. Remnant, Peter, and Bennett, Jonathan, trans., 1996. ''New Essays on Human Understanding''. Cambridge University Press. Wiener III.6 (part). An online translation by Jonathan Bennett is available.

Collections

Five important collections of English translations are Wiener (1951), Loemker (1969), Ariew and Garber (1989), Woolhouse and Francks (1998), and Strickland (2006). The ongoing critical edition of all of Leibniz's writings is ''Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe''.

See also

General Leibniz rule

German inventors and discoverers

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Scientific Community

Leibniz formula for π

Leibniz formula for determinants

Leibniz harmonic triangle

Leibniz integral rule for differentiation under the integral sign

Leibniz test

Leibniz's notation

Leibniz operator

Leibniz–Clarke correspondence

Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy

Scientific Revolution

Stepped Reckoner – mechanical calculator

Notes

References

Primary literature

Alexander, H G (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1956.

Ariew, R & D Garber, 1989. ''Leibniz: Philosophical Essays''. Hackett.

Arthur, Richard, 2001. ''The Labyrinth of the Continuum: Writings on the Continuum Problem, 1672–1686''. Yale University Press.

Cohen, Claudine and Wakefield, Andre, 2008. ''Protogaea''. University of Chicago Press.

Cook, Daniel, and Rosemont, Henry Jr., 1994. ''Leibniz: Writings on China''. Open Court.

Loemker, Leroy, 1969 (1956). ''Leibniz: Philosophical Papers and Letters''. Reidel.

Remnant, Peter, and Bennett, Jonathan, 1996 (1981). ''Leibniz: New Essays on Human Understanding''. Cambridge University Press.

Riley, Patrick, 1988. ''Leibniz: Political Writings''. Cambridge University Press.

Sleigh, Robert C., Look, Brandon, and Stam, James, 2005. ''Confessio Philosophi: Papers Concerning the Problem of Evil, 1671–1678''. Yale University Press.

Strickland, Lloyd, 2006. ''The Shorter Leibniz Texts: A Collection of New Translations.'' Continuum.

Wiener, Philip, 1951. ''Leibniz: Selections''. Scribner.

Woolhouse, R.S., and Francks, R., 1998. ''Leibniz: Philosophical Texts''. Oxford University Press.

Secondary literature

Adams, Robert Merrihew. ''Lebniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist''. New York: Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1994.

Aiton, Eric J., 1985. ''Leibniz: A Biography''. Hilger (UK).

Antognazza, M.R.(2008) ''Leibniz: An Intellectual Biography''. Cambridge Univ. Press.

Albeck-Gidron, Rachel, ''The Century of the Monads: Leibniz's Metaphysics and 20th-Century Modernity'', Bar-Ilan University Press.

Bos, H. J. M. (1974) "Differentials, higher-order differentials and the derivative in the Leibnizian calculus," ''Arch. History Exact Sci.'' 14: 1—90.

Couturat, Louis, 1901. ''La Logique de Leibniz''. Paris: Felix Alcan.

Davis, Martin, 2000. ''The Universal Computer: The Road from Leibniz to Turing''. WW Norton.

Deleuze, Gilles, 1993. ''The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque''. University of Minnesota Press.

Du Bois-Reymond, Paul, 18nn. "Leibnizian Thoughts in Modern Science".

Finster, Reinhard & Gerd van den Heuvel. ''Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz''. Mit Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten. 4. Auflage. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2000 (Rowohlts Monographien, 50481), ISBN 3-499-50481-2.

Grattan-Guinness, Ivor, 1997. ''The Norton History of the Mathematical Sciences''. W W Norton.

Hall, A. R., 1980. ''Philosophers at War: The Quarrel between Newton and Leibniz''. Cambridge University Press.

Heidegger, Martin, 1983. ''The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic''. Indiana University Press.

Hirano, Hideaki, 1997. "Cultural Pluralism And Natural Law." Unpublished.

Hostler, J., 1975. ''Leibniz's Moral Philosophy''. UK: Duckworth.

Jolley, Nicholas, ed., 1995. ''The Cambridge Companion to Leibniz''. Cambridge University Press.

LeClerc, Ivor, ed., 1973. ''The Philosophy of Leibniz and the Modern World''. Vanderbilt University Press.

Lovejoy, Arthur O., 1957 (1936) "Plenitude and Sufficient Reason in Leibniz and Spinoza" in his ''The Great Chain of Being''. Harvard University Press: 144–82. Reprinted in Frankfurt, H. G., ed., 1972. Leibniz: A Collection of Critical Essays. Anchor Books.

Mandelbrot, Benoît, 1977. ''The Fractal Geometry of Nature''. Freeman.

Mates, Benson, 1986. ''The Philosophy of Leibniz: Metaphysics and Language''. Oxford University Press.

Mercer, Christia, 2001. ''Leibniz's metaphysics: Its Origins and Development''. Cambridge University Press.

Morris, Simon Conway, 2003. ''Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe''. Cambridge University Press.

Perkins, Franklin, 2004. ''Leibniz and China: A Commerce of Light''. Cambridge University Press.

Rensoli, Lourdes, 2002. ''El problema antropologico en la concepcion filosofica de G. W. Leibniz''. Leibnitius Politechnicus. Universidad Politecnica de Valencia.

Riley, Patrick, 1996. ''Leibniz's Universal Jurisprudence: Justice as the Charity of the Wise''. Harvard University Press.

Rutherford, Donald, 1998. ''Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature''. Cambridge University Press.

Struik, D. J., 1969. ''A Source Book in Mathematics, 1200–1800''. Harvard University Press.

Ward, P. D., and Brownlee, D., 2000. ''Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe''. Springer Verlag.

Wilson, Catherine, 1989. 'Leibniz's Metaphysics''. Princeton University Press.

Zalta, E. N., 2000. "A (Leibnizian) Theory of Concepts", ''Philosophiegeschichte und logische Analyse / Logical Analysis and History of Philosophy'' 3: 137–183.

External links

An extensive bibliography

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: "Leibniz" Douglas Burnham.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Articles on Leibniz.

George MacDonald Ross, ''Leibniz'', Originally published: Oxford University Press (Past Masters) 1984; Electronic edition: Leeds Electronic Text Centre July 2000

translations by Jonathan Bennett, of the ''New Essays'', the exchanges with Bayle, Arnauld and Clarke, and about 15 shorter works.

Leibnitiana Gregory Brown.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Texts and Translations, compiled by Donald Rutherford, UCSD

Leibniz-translations.com Scroll down for many Leibniz links.

Gottfried Leibniz Archives

Leibniz Prize.

Philosophical Works of Leibnitz translated by G.M. Duncan

Leibnitiana, links and resources compiled by Gregory Brown, University of Houston.

Leibnizian Resources, many links organized by Markku Roinila, University of Helsinki.

Category:1646 births Category:1716 deaths Category:17th-century Latin-language writers Category:17th-century mathematicians Category:18th-century Latin-language writers Category:18th-century mathematicians Category:18th-century philosophers Category:17th-century philosophers Category:Christian philosophers Category:Early modern philosophers Category:Enlightenment philosophers Category:German Christians Category:German librarians Category:German logicians Category:German mathematicians Category:German philosophers Category:German physicists Category:German scientists Category:History of calculus Category:Idealists Category:Language creators Category:Mathematical analysts Category:Members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences Category:Ontologists Category:Rationalists Category:People from Leipzig Category:People from the Electorate of Saxony Category:Philosophers of law Category:Philosophers of mind Category:Political theorists Category:University of Altdorf alumni Category:University of Leipzig alumni Category:Fellows of the Royal Society Category:Plagiarism controversies Category:German music theorists

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Anthony Meredith Quinton, Baron Quinton (March 25, 1925 – June 19, 2010) was a British political and moral philosopher, metaphysician, and materialist philosopher of mind.

Life

A fellow of All Souls, he became a Fellow of New College, Oxford in 1955, and was President of Trinity College, Oxford from 1978 to 1987.

He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1975 to 1976. He was Chairman of the Board of the British Library from 1985-1990.

In 1983, he was made a life peer as Baron Quinton, of Holywell in the City of Oxford and County of Oxfordshire.

To BBC Radio audiences, Anthony Quinton became well known as a presenter of the long-running ''Round Britain Quiz''.

His Shortest Definition of Philosophy

His longer definition

Writings

''The Nature of Things'', (London, 1973)

''The Politics of Imperfection: The Religious and Secular Traditions of Conservative Thought in England from Hooker to Oakeshott''

''Utilitarian Ethics'' (1973)

''Francis Bacon'' (Oxford, 1980)

''Thoughts and Thinkers'' (1982)

''From Wodehouse To Wittgenstein'' (1998)

References

External links

Obituary at guardian.co.uk

Obituary at Telegraph.co.uk

Category:1925 births Category:2010 deaths Category:Conservative Party (UK) life peers Category:21st-century philosophers Category:British philosophers Category:British radio presenters Category:Old Stoics Category:Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford Category:Fellows of New College, Oxford Category:Presidents of Trinity College, Oxford

de:Anthony Quinton, Baron Quinton

Coordinates	31°51′51″N35°10′11″N
honorific-prefix	The Honourable, C.D.
name	Usain Bolt
nickname	Lightning Bolt
honorific-suffix	OJ
nationality	Jamaican
sport	Track and field
event	100m, 200m, 400m, 4×100m
club	Racers Track Club
birth date	August 21, 1986
birth place	Trelawny, Jamaica
residence	Kingston, Jamaica
height
weight
pb	100m: 9.58 s (WR, Berlin 2009) 150m: 14.35 s (WB, Manchester 2009) 200m: 19.19 s (WR, Berlin 2009) 400m: 45.28 s (Kingston 2007)
medaltemplates	}}

}} The Honourable Usain St. Leo Bolt, OJ, C.D. (; born 21 August 1986), is a Jamaican sprinter and a three-time World and Olympic gold medalist. He is the world record and Olympic record holder in the 100 metres, the 200 metres and (along with his teammates) the 4×100 metres relay. He is the reigning Olympic champion in these three events.

Bolt distinguished himself with a 200 m gold medal at the 2002 World Junior Championships, making him the competition's youngest-ever gold medalist. In 2004, at the CARIFTA Games, he became the first junior sprinter to run the 200 m in under 20 seconds with a time of 19.93 s, breaking the previous world junior record held by Roy Martin by two-tenths of a second. He turned professional in 2004, and although he competed at the 2004 Summer Olympics, he missed most of the next two seasons due to injuries. In 2007, he surpassed Don Quarrie's 200 m Jamaican record with a run of 19.75 s.

His 2008 season began with his first world record performance—a 100 m world record of 9.72 s—and culminated in world and Olympic records in both the 100 m and 200 m events at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. He ran 9.69 s for the 100 m and 19.30 s in the 200 m, and also set a 4×100 m relay record of 37.10 s with the Jamaican team. This made him the first man to win three sprinting events at a single Olympics since Carl Lewis in 1984, and the first man to set world records in all three at a single Olympics. The following year he further lowered his own 100 m and 200 m world records to 9.58 s and 19.19 s respectively at the 2009 World Championships. This made him the first man to hold both the 100 and 200 m world and Olympic titles at the same time.

His 2009 record breaking margin over 100 m is the highest since the start of digital time measurements. His achievements in sprinting have earned him the media nickname "Lightning Bolt", and awards including the ''IAAF World Athlete of the Year'', ''Track & Field Athlete of the Year'', and ''Laureus Sportsman of the Year''.

Early years

Bolt was born on 21 August 1986 in Sherwood Content, a small town in Trelawny, Jamaica, and grew up with his parents, Wellesley and Jennifer Bolt, his brother Sadeeki, and his sister Sherine. His parents ran the local grocery store in the rural area, and Bolt spent his time playing cricket and football in the street with his brother, later saying, "When I was young, I didn’t really think about anything other than sports".

As a child, he attended Waldensia Primary and All-age School, and it was here that he first began to show his sprinting potential, running in the annual national primary-schools' meeting for his parish. By the age of twelve, Bolt had become the school's fastest runner over the 100 metres distance.

Upon his entry to William Knibb Memorial High School, Bolt continued to focus on other sports, but his cricket coach noticed Bolt's speed on the pitch and urged him to try track and field events. Pablo McNeil, a former Olympic sprint athlete, and Dwayne Barrett coached Bolt, encouraging him to focus his energy on improving his athletic abilities. The school had a history of success in athletics with past students, including sprinter Michael Green. Bolt won his first annual high school championships medal in 2001, taking the silver medal in the 200 metres with a time of 22.04 seconds. McNeil soon became his primary coach, and the two enjoyed a positive partnership, although McNeil was occasionally frustrated by Bolt's lack of dedication to his training and his predisposition to practical jokes.

Early competitions

Performing for Jamaica in his first Caribbean regional event, Bolt clocked a personal best of 48.28 s in the 400 metres in the 2001 CARIFTA Games, winning a silver medal. The 200 m also yielded a silver as Bolt finished in 21.81 s.

He made his first appearance on the world stage at the 2001 IAAF World Youth Championships in Debrecen, Hungary. Running in the 200 m event, he failed to qualify for the finals, but he still set a new personal best of 21.73 s. Bolt still did not take athletics or himself too seriously, however, and he took his mischievousness to new heights by hiding in the back of a van when he was supposed to be preparing for the 200 m finals at the CARIFTA Trials. He was detained by the police for his practical joke, and there was an outcry from the local community, which blamed coach McNeil for the incident. However, the controversy subsided, and both McNeil and Bolt went to the CARIFTA Games, where Bolt set championship records in the 200 m and 400 m with times of 21.12 s and 47.33 s, respectively. He continued to set records with 20.61 s and 47.12 s finishes at the Central American and Caribbean Junior Championships.

Former Prime Minister P. J. Patterson recognised Bolt's talent and arranged for him to move to Kingston, along with Jermaine Gonzales, so he could train with the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association (JAAA) at the University of Technology, Jamaica.

Rise to prominence

The 2002 World Junior Championships before a home crowd in Kingston, Jamaica, gave Bolt a chance to prove his credentials on the world stage. By the age of 15, he had grown to tall, and he physically stood out amongst his peers. He won the 200 m, in a time of 20.61 s, 0.03 seconds slower than his personal best of 20.58 s set in the 1st round. Bolt's 200 m win made him the youngest world-junior gold medalist ever. The expectation from the home crowd had made him so nervous that he had put his shoes on the wrong feet. However, it turned out to be a revelatory experience for Bolt as he vowed never again to let himself be affected by pre-race nerves. As a member of the Jamaican sprint relay team, he also took two silver medals and set national junior records in the 4×100 metres and 4×400 metres relay, running times of 39.15 s and 3:04.06 minutes respectively.

The flow of medals continued as he won another gold at the 2003 World Youth Championships. He set a new championship record in the 200 m with a time of 20.40 s, despite a 1.1 m/s head wind. Michael Johnson, the 200 m world-record holder, took note of Bolt's potential but worried that the young sprinter might be over-pressured, stating, "It's all about what he does three, four, five years down the line". Bolt had also impressed the athletics hierarchy, and he received the IAAF Rising Star Award for 2002.

Bolt turned his main focus to the 200 m and equalled Roy Martin's world junior record of 20.13 s at the Pan-American Junior Championships. This performance attracted interest from the press, and his times in the 200 m and 400 m led to him being touted as a possible successor to Johnson. Indeed, at sixteen years old, Bolt had reached times that Johnson did not register until he was twenty, and Bolt's 200 m time was superior to Maurice Greene's season's best that year.

In his final Jamaican High School Championships in 2003, he broke both the 200 m and 400 m records with times of 20.25 s and 45.30 s, respectively. Bolt's runs were a significant improvement upon the previous records, beating the 200 m best by more than half a second and the 400 m record by almost a second.

Bolt was growing more popular in his homeland. Howard Hamilton, who was given the task of Public Defender by the government, urged the JAAA to nurture him and prevent burnout, calling Bolt "the most phenomenal sprinter ever produced by this island". His popularity and the attractions of the capital city were beginning to be a burden to the young sprinter. Bolt was increasingly unfocused on his athletic career and preferred to eat fast food, play basketball, and party in Kingston's club scene. In the absence of a disciplined lifestyle, he became ever-more reliant on his natural ability to beat his competitors on the track.

As the reigning 200 m champion at both the World Youth and World Junior championships, Bolt hoped to take a clean sweep of the world 200 m championships in the Senior World Championships in Paris. Bolt beat all comers at the 200 m in the World Championship trials, but he was pragmatic about his chances and noted that, even if he did not make the final, he would consider setting a personal best a success. However, he suffered a bout of conjunctivitis before the event, and it ruined his training schedule. Realising he would not be in peak condition, the JAAA refused to let him participate in the finals on the grounds that he was too young and inexperienced. Bolt was dismayed at missing out on the opportunity, but focused on getting himself in shape to gain a place on the Jamaican Olympic team instead. Even though he missed the World Championships, Bolt was awarded the IAAF Rising Star Award for the 2003 season on the strength of his junior record-equalling run.

Professional athletics career

Under the guidance of new coach Fitz Coleman, Bolt turned professional in 2004, beginning with the CARIFTA Games in Bermuda. He became the first junior sprinter to run the 200 m in under twenty seconds, taking the world junior record outright with a time of 19.93 s. A hamstring injury in May ruined Bolt's chances of competing in the 2004 World Junior Championships, but he was still chosen for the Jamaican Olympic squad. Bolt headed to the 2004 Athens Olympics with confidence and a new record on his side. However, he was hampered by a leg injury and was eliminated in the first round of the 200 metres with a disappointing time of 21.05 s. American colleges offered Bolt track scholarships on the strength of his performances, but the teenager from Trelawny refused them all, stating that he was content to stay in his homeland of Jamaica. Bolt instead chose the surroundings of the University of Technology, Jamaica, as his professional training ground, staying with the university's primitive track and weight room that had served him well in his amateur years.

The year 2005 signalled a fresh start for Bolt in the form of a new coach, Glen Mills, and a new attitude to athletics. Mills recognised Bolt's potential and aimed to cease the sprinter's unprofessional approach to the sport. Bolt began training with Mills in preparation for the upcoming athletics season, partnering with more-seasoned sprinters such as Kim Collins and Dwain Chambers. The year began well, and in July he knocked more than a third of a second off the 200 m CAC Championship record with a run of 20.03 s, then registered his 200 m season's best at London's Crystal Palace, running in 19.99 s. Misfortune awaited Bolt at the next major event, the 2005 World Championships in Helsinki. Bolt felt that both his work ethic and athleticism had much improved since the 2004 Olympics, and he saw the World Championships as a way to live up to expectations, stating, "I really want to make up for what happened in Athens. Hopefully, everything will fall into place". Bolt qualified with runs under 21 s, but he suffered an injury in the final, finishing in last place with a time of 26.27 s. Injuries were preventing him from completing a full professional athletics season, and the eighteen-year-old Bolt still had not proven his mettle in the major world-athletics competitions. Bolt was involved in a car accident in November, and although he suffered only minor facial lacerations, his training schedule was further upset. His manager, Norman Peart, made Bolt's training less intensive, and he had fully recuperated the following week. Bolt had continued to improve his performances, and he reached the world top-5 rankings in 2005 and 2006. Peart and Mills stated their intentions to push Bolt to do longer sprinting distances with the aim of making the 400 m event his primary event by 2007 or 2008. Bolt was less enthusiastic, and demanded that he feel comfortable in his sprinting. He suffered another hamstring injury in March 2006, forcing him to withdraw from the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, and he did not return to track events until May. After his recovery, Bolt was given new training exercises to improve flexibility, and the plans to move him up to the 400 m event were put on hold.

Upon his return to competition, the 200 m remained his primary event, and he beat Justin Gatlin's meet record in Ostrava, Czech Republic. Bolt had aspired to run under twenty seconds to claim a season's best but, despite the fact that bad weather had impaired his run, he was happy to end the meeting with just the victory. However, a sub-20-second finish was soon his, as he set a new personal best of 19.88 s at the 2006 Athletissima Grand Prix in Lausanne, Switzerland, finishing behind Xavier Carter and Tyson Gay to earn a bronze medal. Bolt had focused his athletics aims, stating that 2006 was a year to gain experience. Also, he was more keen on competing over longer distances, setting his sights on running regularly in both 200 m and 400 m events within the next two years. Bolt claimed his first major world medal two months later at the IAAF World Athletics Final in Stuttgart, Germany. He passed the finishing post with a time of 20.10 s, gaining a bronze medal in the process. The IAAF World Cup in Athens, Greece, yielded Bolt's first senior international silver medal. Wallace Spearmon from the United States won gold with a championship record time of 19.87 s, beating Bolt's respectable time of 19.96 s. Further 200 m honours on both the regional and international stages awaited Bolt in 2007. The young Jamaican yearned to run in the 100 metres, but coach Mills diverted his attention, stating that he could run the shorter distance if he broke the 200 m national record. In the Jamaican Championships, he ran 19.75 s in the 200 m, breaking the 36-year-old Jamaican record held by Don Quarrie by 0.11 s.

Mills complied with Bolt's demand to run in the 100 m, and he was entered to run the event at the 23rd Vardinoyiannia meeting in Rethymno, Crete. In his debut tournament run, he set a personal best of 10.03 s, winning the gold medal and feeding his enthusiasm for the event.

He built on this achievement at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka, Japan, winning a silver medal. Bolt recorded 19.91 s with a headwind of 0.8 m/s but this paled in comparison with Tyson Gay's time of 19.76 s, which set a new championship record.

The Jamaican national record fell when Bolt partnered with Asafa Powell, Marvin Anderson, and Nesta Carter in the 4×100 metres relay. However, their finish in 37.89 s was not enough to beat the Americans' time of 37.78 s. Bolt did not win any gold medals at the major tournaments in 2007, but Mills felt that Bolt's technique was much improved, pinpointing improvements in Bolt's balance at the turns over 200 m and an increase in his stride frequency, giving him more driving power on the track.

World-record breaker

The silver medals from the 2007 Osaka World Championships boosted Bolt's desire to run, and he took a more serious, more mature stance towards his career. Bolt continued to develop in the 100 m, and he entered to run in the event at the Jamaica Invitational in Kingston. On 3 May 2008, Bolt ran a time of 9.76 s, aided by a tail wind of 1.8 m/s, considerably improving upon his previous personal best of 10.03 s. This was the second-fastest legal performance in the history of the event; second only to compatriot Asafa Powell's 9.74 s record set the previous year in Rieti, Italy. Rival Tyson Gay lauded the performance, praising Bolt's form and technique especially. Michael Johnson, who was observing the race, said that he was shocked at how quickly he had improved over the 100 m distance. The Jamaican surprised even himself with the time, but coach Glen Mills remained confident that there was more to come.

Mills' prediction came true before the end of the month when Bolt established a new 100 m world record on 31 May 2008. Pushed on by a tail wind of 1.7 m/s, Bolt ran 9.72 s at the Reebok Grand Prix held in the Icahn Stadium in New York City, breaking Powell's record. The record time was even more remarkable in light of the fact that it was only his fifth senior run over the distance. Gay again finished second and commended Bolt's physical superiority, stating, "It looked like his knees were going past my face". Commentators noted that Bolt appeared to have gained a psychological advantage over fellow Olympic contender Gay.

In June 2008, Bolt responded to claims that he was a lazy athlete, saying that the comments were unjustified, and he trained hard to achieve his potential. However, he surmised that such comments stemmed from his lack of enthusiasm for the 400 metres event, and chose to not make the effort to train for distance running. Turning his efforts to the 200 m, Bolt proved that he could excel in multiple events—first setting the world-leading time in Ostrava, then breaking the national record for the second time with a 19.67 s finish in Athens, Greece. Although Mills still preferred that Bolt focus on the longer distances, the acceptance of Bolt's demand to run in the 100 m worked for both sprinter and trainer. Bolt was more focused in practice, and a training schedule to boost his top speed and his stamina, in preparation for the Olympics, had improved both his 100 m and 200 m times. His confidence was building, and he was sure that he would perform well in the upcoming Olympics.

2008 Summer Olympics

Bolt announced that he would double-up with the 100 metres and 200 metres events at the Beijing Summer Olympics, and the new 100 m world-record holder was the favourite to win both. Michael Johnson, the 200 m and 400 m record holder, personally backed the sprinter, saying that he did not believe that a lack of experience would work against him. Bolt qualified for the 100 m final with times of 9.92 s and 9.85 s in the quarter-finals and semifinals, respectively.

In the Olympic 100 m final, Bolt broke new ground, winning in 9.69 s (unofficially 9.683 s) with a reaction time of 0.165 s. This was an improvement upon his own world record, and he was well ahead of second-place finisher Richard Thompson, who finished in 9.89 s. Not only was the record set without a favourable wind (+0.0 m/s), but he also visibly slowed down to celebrate before he finished and his shoelace was untied. Bolt's coach reported that, based upon the speed of Bolt's opening 60 m, he could have finished with a time of 9.52 s. After scientific analysis of Bolt's run by the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Oslo, Hans Eriksen and his colleagues also predicted a sub 9.60 s time. Considering factors such as Bolt's position, acceleration and velocity in comparison with second-place-finisher Thompson, the team estimated that Bolt could have finished in 9.55±0.04 s had he not slowed to celebrate before the finishing line.

Bolt stated that setting a record was not a priority for him, and that his goal was just to win the gold medal, Jamaica's first of the 2008 Games. Olympic medalist Kriss Akabusi construed Bolt's chest slapping before the finish line as showboating, noting that the actions cost Bolt an even faster record time. IOC president Jacques Rogge also condemned the Jamaican's actions as disrespectful. Bolt denied that this was the purpose of his celebration by saying, "I wasn't bragging. When I saw I wasn't covered, I was just happy". Lamine Diack, president of the IAAF, supported Bolt and said that his celebration was appropriate given the circumstances of his victory. Jamaican government minister Edmund Bartlett also defended Bolt's actions, stating, "We have to see it in the glory of their moment and give it to them. We have to allow the personality of youth to express itself".

Bolt then focused on attaining a gold medal in the 200 m event, aiming to emulate Carl Lewis' double win in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Michael Johnson felt that Bolt would easily win gold but believed that his own world record of 19.32 s set at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta would remain intact at the Olympics. Bolt eased through the first and second rounds of the 200 m, jogging towards the end of his run both times. He won his semifinal and progressed to the final as the favourite to win. Retired Jamaican sprinter Don Quarrie praised Bolt, saying he was confident that Johnson's record could be beaten. The following day, at the final, he won Jamaica's fourth gold of the Games, setting a new world and Olympic record of 19.30 s. Johnson's record fell despite the fact that Bolt was impeded by a 0.9 m/s headwind. The feat made him the first sprinter since Quarrie to hold both 100 m and 200 m world records simultaneously and the first since the introduction of electronic timing. Furthermore, Bolt became the first sprinter to break both records at the same Olympics. Unlike in the 100 m final, Bolt sprinted hard all the way to the finishing line in the 200 m race, even dipping his chest to improve his time. Following the race, "Happy Birthday" was played over the stadium's sound system as his 22nd birthday would begin at midnight.

Two days later, Bolt ran as the third leg in the Jamaican 4x100 metres relay team, increasing his gold medal total to three. Along with teammates Nesta Carter, Michael Frater, and Asafa Powell, Bolt broke another world and Olympic record, their 37.10 s finish breaking the previous record by three tenths of a second. Powell, who anchored the team to the finishing line, lamented the loss of his 100 m record to Bolt but showed no animosity towards his Jamaican rival, stating that he was delighted to help him set his third world record. Following his victories, Bolt donated US$50,000 to the children of the Sichuan province of China to help those harmed by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

Bolt's record-setting runs caused commentators not only to praise his achievements but also to speculate about his potential to become one of the most successful sprinters ever. Critics hailed his Olympic success as a new beginning for a sport that had long suffered through high-profile drug scandals. The previous six years had seen the BALCO scandal, Tim Montgomery and Justin Gatlin stripped of their 100 m world records, and Marion Jones returning three Olympic gold medals. All three sprinters were disqualified from athletics after drugs tests detected banned substances in their systems. Bolt's record-breaking performances caused suspicion among some commentators, including Victor Conte, and the lack of an independent Caribbean anti-doping federation raised more concerns. The accusations of drug use were vehemently rejected by Glen Mills (Bolt's coach) and Herb Elliott (the Jamaican athletics team doctor). Elliott, a member of the IAAF anti-doping commission, urged those concerned about the issue to "come down and see our programme, come down and see our testing, we have nothing to hide". Mills had been equally ardent that Bolt was a clean athlete, declaring to the ''Jamaica Gleaner'': "We will test any time, any day, any part of the body...[he] doesn't even like to take vitamins". Bolt stated that he had been tested four times prior to the Olympics, and all had tested negative for banned substances. He also welcomed anti-doping authorities to test him to prove that he was clean, stating, "We work hard and we perform well and we know we're clean".

}}

After the Olympics

The end of the 2008 athletics season saw Bolt compete in the ÅF Golden League, beginning in Weltklasse Zürich. Despite having the slowest start among his competitors in the 100 m race, he still crossed the finishing line in 9.83 s. Even though the time was slower than both his newly set world record and Asafa Powell's track record, it was still among the top-fifteen 100 m finishes by any sprinter to that date. Bolt admitted that he was not running at full strength, suffering from a cold, but he had concentrated on both winning the race and finishing the season in good health. At the Super Grand Prix final in Lausanne, Bolt ran his second-fastest 200 m with a time of 19.63 s, equalling Xavier Carter's track record. However, it was the 100 m final, featuring Asafa Powell, that drew the most interest. Powell had moved closer to Bolt's world record after setting a new personal best of 9.72 s, reaffirming his status as Bolt's main contender. Bolt's final event of the season came three days later at the Golden League final in Brussels. This was the first 100 m race featuring both Bolt and Powell since the final in the Olympics. Both Jamaicans broke the track record, but Bolt came out on top with a time of 9.77 s, beating Powell by 0.06 s. Victory, however, did not come as smoothly as it had in Beijing. Bolt made the slowest start of the nine competitors and had to recover ground in cold conditions and against a 0.9 m/s headwind. Yet the results confirmed Jamaican dominance in the 100 m, with nine of the ten-fastest legal times in history being recorded by either Bolt or Powell. On his return to Jamaica, Bolt was honoured in a homecoming celebration and received an Order of Distinction in recognition of his achievements at the Olympics.

He was selected as the IAAF Male Athlete of the year and won a Special Olympic Award for his performances. However, Bolt turned his attention to future events, suggesting that he could aim to break the 400 metres world record in 2010 as no major championships were scheduled that year.

2009 Berlin World Championships

Bolt started the season competing over 400 metres in order to improve his speed, winning two races and registering 45.54 s in Kingston, and windy conditions gave him his first sub-10 second finish of the season in the 100 m in March. In late April Bolt suffered minor leg injuries in a car crash. However, he quickly recovered following minor surgery and (after cancelling a track meet in Jamaica) he stated that he was fit to compete in the 150 metres street race at the Manchester Great City Games. Bolt won the race in 14.35 s, the fastest time ever recorded for 150 m. Despite not being at full fitness, he took the 100 and 200 m titles at the Jamaican national championships, with runs of 9.86 s and 20.25 s respectively. This meant he had qualified for both events at the 2009 World Championships. Rival Tyson Gay suggested that Bolt's 100 m record was within his grasp, but Bolt dismissed the claim and instead noted that he was more interested in Asafa Powell's return from injury. Bolt defied unfavourable conditions at the Athletissima meet in July, running 19.59 seconds into a 0.9 m/s headwind and rain, to record the fourth fastest time ever over 200 m, one hundredth off Gay's best time.

At the 2009 World Championships in August, Bolt eased through the 100 m heats, clocking the fastest ever pre-final performance of 9.89 seconds. The final was the first time Bolt and Gay had met in the season, and Bolt improved his world record with a time of 9.58 s to win his first World Championship gold medal. Gay finished with a time of 9.71 s, 0.02 s off Bolt's 9.69 s world-record run in Beijing. Taking over a tenth of a second off the previous best mark, this was the largest ever margin of improvement in the 100 m world record since the beginning of electronic timing.

Although Gay withdrew from the second race of the competition, the Jamaican once again produced world record-breaking form in the 200 metres final. He broke his own record by 0.11 seconds, finishing with a time of 19.19 seconds. He won the 200 m race by the biggest margin in World Championships history, even though the race had three other athletes running under 19.90 seconds, the greatest number ever in the event. Bolt's pace impressed even the more experienced of his competitors; third-placed Wallace Spearmon complimented his speed, and former Olympic champion Shawn Crawford said "Just coming out there...I felt like I was in a video game, that guy was moving – fast". Bolt pointed out that an important factor in his performance at the World Championships was his improved start to the races: his reaction times in the 100 m (0.146) and 200 m (0.133) were significantly faster than those he had produced in his world record runs at the Beijing Olympics. However, he, together with other members of Jamaican 4x100 m relay team, fell short of their own world record of 37.10 s set at 2008 Summer Olympics by timing 37.31 s, which is, however, a championship record and the second fastest time in history at that date.

On the last day of the Berlin Championships, the governing Mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, presented Bolt with a 12-foot high section of the Berlin Wall in a small ceremony, saying Bolt had shown that “one can tear down walls that had been considered as insurmountable.” The nearly three-ton segment will be delivered to Bolt's training camp in Jamaica.

Several days after Bolt broke the world records in 100 and 200 metres events, Mike Powell, the world record holder in long jump (8.95 metres set in 1991) argued that Bolt could become the first man to jump over 9 metres, the long jump event being "a perfect fit for his speed and height". At the end of the season he was selected as the IAAF World Athlete of the Year for the second year running.

2010: Diamond League and broken streak

Early on in the 2010 outdoor season, Bolt ran 19.56 seconds in the 200 m in Kingston, Jamaica for the fourth-fastest run of all-time, although he stated that he had no record breaking ambitions for the forthcoming season. He took to the international circuit May with wins in East Asia at the Colorful Daegu Pre-Championships Meeting and then a comfortable win in his 2010 IAAF Diamond League debut at the Shanghai Golden Grand Prix. Bolt made an attempt to break Michael Johnson's best time over the rarely competed 300 metres event at the Golden Spike meeting in Ostrava. He failed to match Johnson's ten-year-old record of 30.85 and suffered a setback in that his 30.97-second run in wet weather had left him with an Achilles tendon problem.

On his return from injury a month later, he asserted himself with a 100 m win at the Athletissima meeting in Lausanne (9.82 seconds) and a victory over Asafa Powell at Meeting Areva in Paris (9.84 seconds). Despite this run of form, he suffered only the second loss of his career in a 100 m final at the DN Galan. Tyson Gay soundly defeated him with a run of 9.84 to Bolt's 9.97 seconds, and the Jamaican reflected that he had slacked off in training early in the season while Gay had been better prepared and in a better condition. This marked Bolt's first loss to Gay over 100 m, which coincidentally occurred in the same stadium where Powell had beaten Bolt for the first time two years earlier.

2011 Daegu World Championships

Considered the overwhelming favourite to win in the 100 metres at the 2011 World Championships in Daegu, Bolt was eliminated from the final for a false start. Usain Bolt's countryman, Yohan Blake won in a season best of 9.92 seconds.

Personal life

Bolt expresses a love for dancing and his character is frequently described as laid-back and relaxed. Bolt's Jamaican track and field idols include Herb McKenley and former Jamaican 100 m 200 m world record holder, Don Quarrie. Michael Johnson, the former 200 m world and Olympic record holder, is also held in high esteem by Bolt. The first sport to interest him was cricket and he said if he was not a sprinter he would be a fast bowler instead. As a child he was a supporter of Pakistan and admired the bowling of Waqar Younis. He is also a fan of Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar, West Indian opener Chris Gayle and Australian opener Matthew Hayden. During a charity cricket match Bolt clean bowled West Indies captain and legendary batsman Chris Gayle. Gayle was complimentary of Bolt's pace and swing. Bolt also whacked a six as he showed off his batting skills as well. The six came off Chris Gayle's bowling. Another bowler complimentary of Bolt's pace was former West Indies fast-bowling great Curtly Ambrose. Bolt has also expressed his love for football and is a fan of Manchester United as well as Real Madrid. Bolt has also declared he is a fan of Dutch striker Ruud van Nistelrooy. Following a race in Manchester, he met the team at their training ground and offered Portuguese national Cristiano Ronaldo some sprinting advice. Bolt was a special guest of Manchester United at the 2011 UEFA Champions League final in London, where he stated he'd like to play for them after he retires.

In 2010, he also revealed his fondness of music, when he played a reggae DJ set to a crowd in Paris.

After winning the 200 m title in the 2002 World Junior Championships in Kingston, Jamaica, Bolt signed a sponsorship deal with Puma. To promote Bolt's chase for Olympic glory in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, Puma released a series of videos including Bolt's then-world-record-setting run in Icahn Stadium and his Olympic preparations. After his world record breaking run in New York City, which was preceded by a lightning storm, the press frequently made puns on the Jamaican's name, nicknaming him "Lightning Bolt" and the "Bolt from the blue". During the Beijing 2008 100 m final, Bolt wore golden Puma Complete Theseus spikes that had "Beijing 100 m Gold" emblazoned across them. His athletics agent is PACE Sports Management.

In 2010, Bolt signed a lucrative publishing deal with HarperCollins for an autobiography, which was negotiated by Chris Nathaniel of NVA Management. This is scheduled for release in 2012. During a press conference in Paris on 15 July 2010, Bolt declined any comment on what would be contained within the book saying, "you can't really give away anything in your book ... should be exciting, it's my life, and I'm a cool and exciting guy".

Recognition

As a result of Bolt's successes in athletics, he was named the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year for 2009 and 2010.

IAAF World Athlete of the Year: 2008, 2009

Track & Field Athlete of the Year: 2008, 2009

Laureus World Sportsman of the Year: 2009, 2010

BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year: 2008, 2009

Statistics

}}

Personal bests

!Event	!Time (seconds)	!Venue	!Date	!Records	!Notes
100 metres	9.58	Berlin, Germany	16 August 2009
150 metres	14.35	Manchester, United Kingdom	17 May 2009	World best	He ran the last 100 m in 8.70, the fastest ever recorded time over a 100 m distance. This would equal an average speed of 41.38 km/h.
	19.19	Berlin, Germany	20 August 2009
300 metres	30.97	Ostrava, Czech Republic	27 May 2010		This is the second fastest time, behind Michael Johnson's 30.85.
400 metres	45.28		5 May 2007
	37.10	Beijing, China			Shared with Asafa Powell, Michael Frater and Nesta Carter. Also holds the second fastest time with 37.31.

Records

Bolt's personal best of 9.58 seconds in the 100 metres is the fastest ever legal time. Bolt also holds the second fastest time of 9.69 seconds (more precisely 9.683), the current Olympic record. Tyson Gay recorded a time of 9.68 s at the 2008 US Olympic Trials, but was aided with a tail wind of 4.1 m/s, exceeding the legal limit of 2.0 m/s set by the IAAF and nullifying its inclusion as a world record. Obadele Thompson's run of 9.69 s in 1996 is also not recognised as it was aided by a 5.0 m/s tail wind.

Bolt's personal best of 19.19 s in the 200 metres is the world record. This was recorded at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics in Berlin against a headwind of −0.3 m/s. He has also broken the Olympic record with a time of 19.30 s (more precisely 19.296 s)

The Jamaican relay team including Bolt, set the 4x100 metres world and Olympic records at the 2008 Olympics with a time of 37.10 seconds. This is the only run in the IAAF top ten performances which was not set by an American team.

Bolt also holds the 200 metres world teenage best results for the age categories 15 (20.58 s), 16 (20.13 s, world youth record), 17 (19.93 s) and 18 (19.93 s, world junior record). He also holds the 150 metres world best set in 2009, during which he ran the last 100 metres in 8.70 seconds, the quickest timed 100 metres ever.

Average speed

From his record time of 9.58 s for the 100 m sprint Usain Bolt's average ground speed equates to: 37.58 km/h or 23.35 mph. However, once his reaction time of 0.15 s is subtracted, his time is closer to 9.43 s, making his average speed closer to 38.18 km/h or 23.72 mph.

Honours

{| |- |rowspan=3|2002 |rowspan=3|World Junior Championships |rowspan=3|Kingston, Jamaica | style="background:gold;"| 1st |200 m |20.61 |- | style="background:silver;"| 2nd |4×100 m relay |39.15 NJR |- | style="background:silver;"| 2nd |4×400 m relay |3:04.06 NJR |- |2003 |World Youth Championships |Sherbrooke, Canada | style="background:gold;"| 1st |200 m |20.40 |- |rowspan=2|2003 |rowspan=2|Pan American Junior Championships |rowspan=2|Bridgetown, Barbados | style="background:gold;"| 1st |200 m |20.13 WYB |- | style="background:silver;"| 2nd |4×100 m relay |39.40 |- |2004 |CARIFTA Games |Hamilton, Bermuda | style="background:gold;"| 1st |200 m |19.93 WJR |- |2005 |Central American and Caribbean Championships |Nassau, Bahamas | style="background:gold;"| 1st |200 m |20.03 |- |2006 |World Athletics Final |Stuttgart, Germany | style="background:#c96;"| 3rd |200 m |20.10 |- |2006 |IAAF World Cup |Athens, Greece | style="background:silver;"| 2nd |200 m |19.96 |- |2007 |World Championships |Osaka, Japan | style="background:silver;"| 2nd |200 metres |19.91 |- |2008 |Reebok Grand Prix |New York City, United States | style="background:gold;"| 1st |100 m |9.72 |- |rowspan=3|2008 |rowspan=3|Olympic Games |rowspan=3|Beijing, China | style="background:gold;"| 1st |100 metres |9.69 |- | style="background:gold;"| 1st |200 metres |19.30 |- | style="background:gold;"| 1st |4×100 metres relay |37.10 |- |rowspan=3|2009 |rowspan=3|World Championships |rowspan=3|Berlin, Germany | style="background:gold;"| 1st |100 metres |9.58 |- | style="background:gold;"| 1st |200 metres |19.19 |- | style="background:gold;"| 1st |4×100 metres relay |37.31 CR |}

See also

Men's 100 metres world record progression

Men's 200 metres world record progression

List of multiple Olympic gold medalists

List of multiple Olympic gold medalists at a single Games

Athletics in Jamaica

Jamaica at the Olympics

References

External links

Official website

Usain Bolt timeline via ''The Daily Telegraph''

Lightning Strikes Twice – slideshow by ''The First Post''

Asafa Powell}} |- |- Tyson Gay}} David Rudisha}} |- |- Roger Federer}} Rafael Nadal}} |- |- |- Asafa Powell}} Tyson Gay}} Tyson Gay}}

Category:Article Feedback Pilot Category:1986 births Category:Living people Category:Male sprinters Category:Athletes (track and field) at the 2004 Summer Olympics Category:Athletes (track and field) at the 2008 Summer Olympics Category:Jamaican sprinters Category:Laureus World Sports Awards winners Category:Olympic athletes of Jamaica Category:Olympic gold medalists for Jamaica Category:People from Trelawny Parish Category:World record holders in athletics (track and field) Category:Olympic medalists in athletics (track and field)

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Coordinates	31°51′51″N35°10′11″N
name	Fun Fun
background	group_or_band
origin	Italy
genre	Italo Disco, Synthpop, eurobeat, eurodance
years active	1983 - 1994
label	X-Energy Records, Polydor Records
associated acts	Spagna
current members	Francesca Merola (model)Roberta Servelli (model)Elena Trastulli (model)Antonelle Pepe (vocals)Angela Parisi (vocals)Ivana Spagna (vocals)
notable instruments	Synthesizers }}

Fun Fun were a popular Italian High Energy/synth pop musical group during the 1980s. Their hits included "Colour My Love" and "Baila Bolero".

Producers Dario Raimondi and Alvaro Ugolini teamed up with studio vocalists Antonella Pepe, Angela Parisi and Ivana Spagna to create a bouncy, high-energy, dancefloor-friendly sound. Their first release, 1983's "Happy Station", found success in Italy and other parts of Europe, thanks to several extended versions, including the notorious "Scratch" version.

Upon receiving invitations for live performances, Raimondi and Ugolini decided to use models for Fun Fun's public image rather than the vocalists themselves, a common tactic used in the European dance music scene by artists like Baltimora and The Real McCoy. "Have Fun!", the band's first full album from 1984, featured Francesca Merola and Roberta Servelli as the on-stage faces for the group. "Have Fun!" featured other popular dance singles, including "Give Me Your Love," "Living In Japan" and the band's oft-covered signature hit "Colour My Love", which became popular in American nightclubs because of its insistent synth bassline and easily-mixable percussion intro.

After "Have Fun!", Spagna left Fun Fun and started a solo career, returning for occasional lyrical contributions. Fun Fun continued on with Merola and Elena Trastulli (who replaced Servelli) as models and a new musician/producer Larry Pignagnoli, releasing a second album, 1987's "Double Fun". "Double Fun" had several singles, including "Could This Be Love" and a cover of Spencer Davis Group's "Gimme Some Lovin'." However, the biggest hit from "Double Fun" was "Baila Bolero", a Spanish-flavored dance ballad. A megamix featuring most of the group's major hits, the "Mega Hit Mix", was released on a 12" single soon afterward.

As the Italo-Disco and High-Energy music scene decreased in popularity toward the end of the 1980s, Fun Fun tried a new direction in 1989 with the House style single "Give Me Love", which had only minimal success. Several years later, the band released its last original song, "I'm Needin' You", in a 90's Eurodance style, to equally minimal success. Since then, the only Fun Fun releases have been best-of compilations or DJ remixes/reconstructions of their previous hits.

Discography

Singles

1983 - ''Happy Station'' [#11 Germany, #4 Netherlands]

1984 - ''Colour My Love'' [#17 Germany, #6 Sweden, #10 Netherlands]

1984 - ''Give Me Your Love'' [#17 Germany, #18 Sweden, #25 Netherlands, #10 Switzerland]

1985 - ''Living In Japan''

1985 - ''Sing Another Song''

1985 - ''Tell Me''

1986 - ''Baila Bolero'' [#22 Germany, #16 Switzerland, #17 Netherlands]

1987 - ''Gimme Some Lovin'''

1987 - ''Could This be Love''

1987 - ''Mega Hit Mix'' [#5 Netherlands]

1989 - ''Give Me Love''

1994 - ''I'm Needin' You''

Full albums

1984 - ''Have Fun!''

1987 - ''Double Fun''

External links

[ Allmusic.com: Fun Fun]

References

Category:Electronic music groups Category:Synthpop groups Category:Italian pop music groups Category:Dance musical groups

de:Fun Fun hu:Fun Fun nl:Fun Fun

Coordinates	31°51′51″N35°10′11″N
Name	Buckwild
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Anthony Best
Origin	The Bronx, New York City, New York
Genre	Hip hop
Years active	1993–present

Buckwild is a Hip hop producer hailing from The Bronx, New York. Originally a DJ, Buck began producing after meeting MC/Producer Lord Finesse. He later joined Finesse's super-crew D.I.T.C., along with Showbiz and A.G., Diamond D, Fat Joe, and the late Big L and brought O.C. with him. His first released production came in 1993, the posse-cut "Shit Is Real (You Can't Front)" featuring Diamond D, Lord Finesse and Sadat X; a B-side to Diamond & The Psychotic Neurotics's "!*! What U Heard".

His first major exposure came when he produced the majority of O.C.'s 1994 underground classic ''Word...Life'', most notably the single ''"Time's Up"''. The same year, he produced 3 songs for Organized Konfusion's second album ''Stress: The Extinction Agenda'', as well as a track for Brand Nubian's ''Everything Is Everything'' album. He also produced 3 songs for The Artifacts on their 1994 album Between A Rock & A Hard Place. Buck continued his exposure in 1995, producing on a number of hailed underground albums, including Big L's ''Lifestylez Ov Da Poor & Dangerous'', AZ's ''Doe Or Die'', Kool G Rap's ''4,5,6'', and Mic Geronimo's ''The Natural''. He also became known for being one of the most active remixers in hip-hop music at the time, remixing singles for Guru, Beastie Boys/Q-Tip, Channel Live/KRS-One, Kool Keith and many others.

In the mid-to-late 1990s, he produced for and remixed artists like Akinyele, Tha Alkaholiks, Beastie Boys, Big Pun, Show & AG, Lord Finesse, Brand Nubian, Capone-N-Noreaga, Diamond D, Fat Joe, Jay-Z, Mase, Memphis Bleek, Nas, O.C., Organized Konfusion, Sadat X, Grand Puba, Mad Skillz and The Notorious B.I.G.. In 2001 he produced 12 of 15 songs on OC's third album Bon Appetit. Perhaps his most famous beat came in 2000, with Black Rob's hit single ''"Whoa!"''.

In 1996, Buckwild appeared on the Red Hot Organization's compilation CD, America is Dying Slowly, alongside Biz Markie, Wu-Tang Clan, and Fat Joe, among many other prominent hip hop artists. The CD, meant to raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic among African American men, was heralded as "a masterpiece" by The Source magazine.

Kurrup Money, Inc. which is the name of a collective of rappers that the producer has taken under his wing. The group consists of Murder Cap, Mello, Mal, Shakes, D-Lux and H-Mob; in 2003 they released their debut mixtape ''Hard 4 The Streets'' which featured production by Buckwild on 8 of the 20 songs.

In 2007 Ground Floor Recordings issued an official double CD worth of Buckwild's rare remixes and productions recorded between 1993 and 1997, ''Diggin' In The Crates (Rare Studio Masters 1993-1997)''. Shortly after Tampa MC Celph Titled reached out to the producer with an idea to create a concept album, featuring new vocals by Celph Titled and guests over unheard and previously unreleased Buckwild beats dating back to the period between 1994 and 1995. The result is the album ''Nineteen Ninety Now'' which was released through No Sleep Recordings in November 2010 to great critical acclaim.

Discography

Albums

''Still Diggin' Composition EP'' (1998)

''Diggin' In The Crates (Rare Studio Masters 1993-1997)'' (2007)

''Nineteen Ninety Now'' w/ Celph Titled (October 26, 2010)

''Buckwild Presents... EP'' (November 16, 2010)

Selected Production Work

50 Cent ''"I Don't Need Em"'', from ''The Massacre'' (2005)

702 ''"Better Day (Ghetto Girl)"'', from ''Star'' (2003)

A+ ''"Me & My Microphone"'' and ''"I Wanna Be Rich"'' from ''The Latch-Key Child'' (1996)

AZ ''"Ho Happy Jackie"'', from ''Doe or Die'' (1995)

AZ ''"I'm Back"'' and ''"Re-Birth"'', from ''Aziatic'' (2002)

AZ ''"Live Wire", from A.W.O.L.'' (2005)

Beanie Sigel ''"Look At Me Now"'', from ''The B.Coming'', "What A Thug About", from ''The Truth'' (2000)

Big L ''"Put It On"'', ''"8 Iz Enuff"'', ''"Danger Zone"'' and ''"Da Graveyard"'', from ''Lifestylez ov da Poor & Dangerous'' (1995)

Big Pun ''"Dream Shatterer [Original Version]"'', from ''Endangered Species'' (2001)

Black Rob ''"Whoa!"'', from ''Life Story'' (2000)

Brand Nubian ''"Alladat"'', from ''Everything Is Everything'' (1994)

Brand Nubian ''"Maybe One Day"'' and ''"Brand Nubian"'', from ''Foundation'' (1998)

Capone-N-Noreaga ''"Neva Die Alone"'' and ''"Black Gangstas"'', from ''The War Report'' (1997)

Capone-N-Noreaga ''"With Me"'', from ''The War Report 2: Report the War'' (2010)

Cormega ''"Mega Fresh X"'', from ''Born and Raised'' (2009)

Cormega ''"A Thin Line"'' from ''The True Meaning'' (2002)

D.I.T.C. ''"Champagne Thoughts"'' (By O.C.), from ''Worldwide'' (1999)

D.I.T.C. ''"Insomnia" (By O.C., A-Bless & D Flow), from ''The Movement'' (2008)

Faith Evans ''"I Love You"'' from ''Faithfully'' (2001)

Fat Joe ''"Walk On By"'' from ''Don Cartagena'' (1998)

Fat Joe ''"Still Real"'', ''"My Lifestyle'' from ''Jealous Ones Still Envy (J.O.S.E.)'' (2001)

Fat Joe ''"Take A Look At My Life"'', from ''Loyalty'' (2002)

Grand Puba ''"I Like It (Buckwild Remix)"'' (1995)

Immortal Technique ''"Stronghold Grip"'' from ''The 3rd World'' (2008)

Jadakiss ''"Pain & Torture"'' from ''The Last Kiss'' (2009)

Jay-Z ''"Lucky Me"'', from ''In My Lifetime, Vol. 1'' (1997)

Jemini The Gifted One ''"Scars & Pain"'', ''"Story Of My Life"'' from Scars & Pain EP (1995)

Kool G Rap ''"Blowin' Up In The World"'' and ''"Fast Life"'', from ''4,5,6'' (1995)

Kool G Rap ''"Holla Back"'' and ''"The Streets"'', from ''The Giancana Story'' (2002)

Kool Keith ''"Yo Black (Buckwild Remix)"'' (1995)

Little Brother ''"Back At It"'', from ''Soldiers Of Fortune''

Lord Finesse ''"Hip 2 Da Game (Buckwild Remix)"'' (1995)

Mad Skillz ''"VA In The House"'', ''"Doin Time In The Cypha"'' and ''"Get Your Groove On"'', from ''From Where???'' (1996)

Method Man & Redman "''Mrs. International"'' from ''Blackout! 2'' (2009)

Mic Geronimo ''"Train Of Thought"'', ''"Masta I.C."'' and ''"Three Stories High"'', from ''The Natural'' (1995)

Nas ''"These Are Our Heroes"'', from ''Street's Disciple'' (2004)

O.C. ''"Word...Life"'', ''"O-Zone"'', ''"Born 2 Live"'', ''"Time's Up"'', ''"Point O Viewz"'', ''"Let It Slide"'', ''"Ma Dukes"'' and ''Outro (Sabotage)'', from ''Word...Life'' (1994)

O.C. ''"Burn Me Slow"'' , ''"Love Child"'' (1997)

O.C. ''"The Chosen One"'', ''"Far From Yours"'' and ''"Hypocrite"'', from ''Jewelz'' (1997)

O.C. 12 of 15 songs from ''Bon Appetit'' (2001)

Organized Konfusion ''"Stress"'', ''"Thirteen"'', ''"Why"'' and ''"Bring It On (Remix)"'', from ''Stress: The Extinction Agenda'' (1994)

P. Diddy & The Bad Boy Family ''"So Complete"'', from ''The Saga Continues...'' (2001)

Playaz Circle ''"U Can Believe It"'' from "Supply & Demand" (2007)

R.A. the Rugged Man ''Every Record Label Sucks Dick'' (1994)

Redman ''"Let's Go"'', from ''Red Gone Wild... Thee Album'' (2007)

Terror Squad, ''"Rudeboy Salute"''

Terror Squad ''"Pass Away"''

The Game ''"Like Father, Like Son"'', from ''The Documentary'' (2005)

The Notorious B.I.G. ''"I Got A Story To Tell"'', from ''Life After Death'' (1997)

Shyne ''"Quasi O.G."'', from ''Godfather Buried Alive'' (2004)

Toshi Kubota ''"Living For Today"'' from ''Time To Share'' (2004)

Swizz Beatz ''"Come N' Get Me"'' featuring Cassidy

Freddie Gibbs "The Wrong One", (2009)

I-20 - "Work", 2010

Celph Titled - ''Nineteen Ninety Now'' (entire album)

Saigon - ''Oh Yeah (Our Babies)'' from ''The Greatest Story Never Told'' (2010)

External links

Pure Righteousness : Interview with Buckwild, published in Egotrip in 1995

D-Bless interview about working with Buckwild

Category:Hip hop record producers Category:American hip hop record producers Category:Diggin' in the Crates Crew members Category:People from the Bronx Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Living people

da:Buckwild es:Buckwild tr:Buckwild