QQC 7

"During this entire period Leibniz read, wrote, and thought continually, pursuing ideas with a strength and intensity know to ordinary people only in their pursuit of wealth and power. His motto at the time was, "With every lost hour a part of life perishes.""

Leibniz is also a funny guy. The common folk can specialize in maybe one or two facets of intellectual pursuit, while Leibniz apparently specializes in nearly all of the intellectual avenues of his time. Perhaps his head was a lot bigger then everyone else. You would think he would need the extra space to store his large stores of multi-faceted knowledge.

My question involves Leibniz's motto. What did he mean by it? Did he mean to suggest that life is short and precious and that we must seize all opportunities to utilize it? Or did he mean that knowledge is lost to us by the second and we must waste no time to record it? Food for thought.

And now I present to you a small haiku dealing with Leibniz

I know lots of stuff
I seek knowledge in this life
My head is quite big

Or was that the haiku I wrote about Dave...

QQC 6

"A few months later Halley found an opportunity to visit Newton in Cambridge, and put the question to him: "What would be the curve described by planets on the supposition that gravity diminishes as the square of the distance?" Newton answered immediately, "An ellipse." Struck with joy and amazement, Halley asked him how he knew that. "Why," said Newton, "I have calculated it."

Newton's a funny guy. He can calculate things that no other person on Earth could have done, things that describe the very nature of the universe, and acts all nonchalant when people ask him about it. Furthermore, it's amazing to see how he cares so little about it, he doesn't bother telling anybody or publishing it. What scientist on the planet today would ever do such a thing? None that I know of to be sure.

Here's a haiku that I think expresses Newton

Just spending all day
Inventing some calculus
Not a big deal

Or at least something like that.