Beyond Zero and One (Andrew Smart) / quote 78 of 171
Leibniz: propagating faith through science
But Leibniz’s real reasons for wanting a binary numbering system were much deeper than the philistine goal of counting money. Leibniz, like almost all scientists of his day, was also deeply religious. He dreamed of inventing a universal language of logic that could once and for all eliminate erroneous thinking and enlighten humanity about God’s perfection and creation. In fact, both calculus and binary numbers were components in Leibniz’s ambitious ultimate philosophical project, the characteristica universalis. What Leibniz really wanted to do with binary numbers was what he called propagitio fidei per scientiam (the propagation of faith through science).