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Explication de l’arithmétique binaire is printed as a dated binary-arithmetic memoir

In 1703 Leibniz published Explication de l’arithmétique binaire, setting out binary place-value arithmetic and its analogy with I Ching figures as he then read them.

Sources: [1][2]

Read the full account

In 1703 Leibniz published Explication de l’arithmétique binaire, setting out binary place-value arithmetic and its analogy with I Ching figures as he then read them. It is not a later stored-program machine.

Context

MacTutor and the Akademie-Ausgabe independently date the 1703 print.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s documented role is bounded by other offices and collaborators named in the sources below.

Conventional years are 1646–1716. Surviving public files are GWLB Nachlass pages, the Akademie-Ausgabe, SEP, and encyclopedias. Leibniz did not typeset those later pages. Later electronic computers are not this life.

Why it matters

Knowledge-access path. High confidence on 1703; refused: later computing as this act.

Who was responsible

Contribution type and responsibility level for each recorded actor — not sole-author shorthand.

  • Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

    Person

    Direct responsibility

    responsibility level 0.4 · verified

    He wrote the 1703 memoir. The Paris academy circuit printed it. Complex; later computers are not this paper.

What changed

Fact → Driver → Indicator. Relationship strength orders the paths; it is not the observed indicator movement.

No public driver impacts are listed for this fact.

Evidence

The sources behind this fact and its verification state.

Verified2 sources on file
  1. 1.MacTutor — Gottfried Wilhelm LeibnizUniversity of St Andrews · High credibility · verified
  2. 2.Leibniz-Edition — Akademie-Ausgabe portalBerlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities / Göttingen Academy · High credibility · verified
What the sources establish

The Akademie-Ausgabe portal and MacTutor independently describe the 1703 binary memoir.

Established: the 1703 binary memoir was printed. Not established: a unique twentieth-century computer series caused by 1703.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz did not file a later UNESCO form, a later Loeb colophon, or a later museum label as a personal act.

Causal path

How this event connects to drivers and indicators in the graph.

No causal path is recorded: this fact is not linked to a driver.

Cite this page

Factrail. (2026). Explication de l’arithmétique binaire is printed as a dated binary-arithmetic memoir. Factrail. https://factrail.ai/facts/gwl-binary-1703

https://factrail.ai/facts/gwl-binary-1703

Accessed 15 October 2026.

By the Factrail desk · Method: how we source and score · Last reviewed

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