Gottfried Leibniz

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, born in Leipzig, was a man of many talents, dabbling in philosophy, mathematics, science, logic, and even a bit of political consulting. He's best known for inventing differential and integral calculus, which, to be fair, he did at roughly the same time as Newton. Who got there first is still a matter of heated debate among historians and anyone with an axe to grind against either party.

Beyond the calculus kerfuffle, Leibniz was a prolific thinker, responsible for early versions of binary code and even philosophical concepts like "monads," which are essentially tiny, indivisible, non-interacting spiritual substances that make up the universe. Don't worry if that doesn't make sense; philosophers have been arguing about them for centuries.

Despite his vast contributions to human knowledge, Leibniz was, definitively, not a Jew. His Lutheran upbringing and extensive theological writings leave little room for doubt. So, while he gifted the world with many intellectual treasures, a Jewish connection was not one of them.