dition to working in the Vatican library, Leibnitz worked with members of the Accademia. He was elected a member of the Accademia at this time. Also while in Rome he read Newton's Principia. His two-part treatise Dynamica studied abstract dynamics and concrete dynamics and is written in a somewhat similar style to Newton's Principia. Although Leibnitz was ahead of his time in aiming at a genuine dynamics, it was this very ambition that prevented him from matching the achievement of his rival Newton. It was only by simplifying the issues that Newton succeeded in reducing them to manageable proportions. Leibnitz put much energy into promoting scientific societies. He was involved in moves to set up academies in Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, and St Petersburg. He began a campaign for an academy in Berlin in 1695, he visited Berlin in 1698 as part of his efforts and on another visit in 1700 he finally persuaded Friedrich to found the Brandenburg Society of Sciences. Leibnitz was appointed its first president, this being an appointment for life. However, the Academy was not particularly successful and only one volume of the proceedings was ever published. It did lead to the creation of the Berlin Academy some years later. Other attempts by Leibnitz to found academies were less successful. He was appointed as Director of a proposed Vienna Academy in 1712 but Leibnitz died before the Academy was created. Similarly he did much of the work to prompt the setting up of the St Petersburg Academy, but again it did not come into existence until after his death. It is no exaggeration to say that Leibnitz corresponded with most of the scholars in Europe. He had over 600 correspondents. Among the mathematicians with whom he corresponded was Grandi. The correspondence started in 1703, and later concerned the results obtained by putting x = 1 into 1/(1+x) = 1 - x + x2 -x3 +.... Leibnitz also corresponded with Varignon on this paradox. Leibnitz discussed logari...
