Q 01/05

What kind of snack has the Hanover firm Bahlsen sold under Leibniz's name since 1891?

A) A gummy sweet

B) A butter biscuit

C) A marzipan praline

D) A salted pretzel

Answer · why

B) A butter biscuit

A butter biscuit took his name only because Leibniz was one of Hanover's most famous residents. Naming foods after famous figures was in fashion, as w...

Q 02/05

Leibniz's geology book Protogaea includes his drawing of the reconstructed skeleton of which mythical creature?

A) The dragon

B) The griffin

C) The unicorn

D) The basilisk

Answer · why

C) The unicorn

The unicorn he drew was a fanciful rebuild from fossil bones found in the Harz region. Such bones were then ground up and sold as medicine.

Q 03/05

Which English scientist secretly wrote the 1713 committee report that ruled against Leibniz in the calculus dispute?

A) Isaac Newton

B) Robert Hooke

C) Edmond Halley

D) Christopher Wren

Answer · why

A) Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton presided over the very body whose committee judged the quarrel, and he drafted its verdict himself. Historians now accept that both men r...

Q 04/05

What did Leibniz do at age 50, only to change his mind when the answer took too long?

A) Applied to Oxford

B) Sought a knighthood

C) Offered to resign

D) Proposed marriage

Answer · why

D) Proposed marriage

Proposed marriage to a woman whose name is lost, then withdrew the offer while she was still deciding. Leibniz stayed single for the rest of his life.

Q 05/05

Which number system, which Leibniz saw as a symbol of God's creation, did he set out in a 1703 paper?

A) Binary

B) Decimal

C) Duodecimal

D) Hexadecimal

Answer · why

A) Binary

Binary needs only the digits 0 and 1, which Leibniz read as an image of creation out of the void. Every modern computer now runs on it.