[PRL] dijkstra anecdote

[David A. Herman]

More specifically, in EWD 1298, Dijkstra quotes E.T.Bell paraphrasing
Leibniz (how's *that* for primary sources?) in his desire for

> a general method in which all truths of the reason would be reduced
> to a kind of calculation. At the same time this would be a sort of
> universal language or script, but infinitely different from all those
> projected hitherto; for the symbols and even the words in it would
> direct reason; and errors, except those of fact, would be mere
> mistakes in calculation.

In other words, a formal logic calculus that would apply to all 
reasoning about all topics ever. I remember reading somewhere that 
Leibniz had this futurist image where, whenever people disagreed about 
anything, they'd just write down the propositions involved in the 
argument in the symbols of the formal language, push the symbols around 
until they came to a conclusion, and then the argument would be resolved.

Dave