Leibniz e a Criação da Numeração Binária

This research was motivated by a citation found in Explanation de l'arithmétique binaire, Leibniz’s seminal work on the binary number system. This citation references the correspondence between Bouvet and Leibniz in which they speculate about the existence of traces of binary arithmetic in Chinese culture. After being retrieved from the “Leibniz-Bouvet Correspondence” website, identified from A to O, these fifteen (15) letters were translated from English to Portuguese. The main actions, theories and opinions of the two correspondents were investigated. In Letter H, Leibniz presents his discovery of binary arithmetic to Bouvet, explaining it in detail. Here he discusses the theory that, in the dual system, One (1) represents God, and Zero (0) represents Nothing, thus being an image of divine Creation ex nihilo (imago creationis). In response, in Letter I, Bouvet describes the parity between binary arithmetic and the characters of the I Ching, explaining that Leibniz's table of binary numbers corresponds entirely to the gua, similar to the whole (––) and broken (– –) lines of the I Ching; and suggests an extension of the table from 32 to 64 gua, as in the I Ching. The Chinese characters of the I Ching are explained by Bouvet, who believes them to be derived from Egyptian hieroglyphics. The series of letters bring other information relevant to Leibniz’s work like the introduction of the concept of ‘Characteristica Universalis’ and the monad (Letter L) and the report on the progress of the development of the binary system (Letter M and O). The originality of this research consists in the translation from English to Portuguese of all correspondence between Leibniz and Bouvet and the initial analysis of the similarities between the concepts developed by Leibniz in Europe and the I Ching of traditional Chinese culture. This work can trigger further research, especially on the ‘organization of knowledge’ proposed by Leibniz, and the similarity between his universal encyclopedia and the Internet.