Preparation for “Leibniz III: Physical Economic Societies and Vis Viva”

The third installment of the Leibniz discussion will be LIVE at 5pm eastern on Wednesday March 16, 2016 — live YouTube viewers will have the opportunity to ask questions and participate in the discussion. The session will cover Leibniz’s work on setting up societies for the improvement of science and economy, with a focus on his specific scientific discovery of vis viva as a measure of the power of motion to accomplish work, and the birth of the science of dynamics. To prepare for that, please watch this video, “Leibniz’s Dynamics and Vis Viva: An Introduction.” The specific papers of Leibniz that will be quoted include:

• “Critical Thoughts on the General Part of the Principles of Descartes”, excerpts here.

• “Discourse on Metaphysics”, XIX–XXII.

• “Specimen Dynamicum”, excerpts here.

• And here is a short paper I wrote deriving the conservation of momentum from Leibniz’s vis viva and relativity of motion.