Here are five instances where beauty and brains do occur simultaneously. Also, I adore the fashion of this era.
(2-years-later-retrospective-observation: HOLY CRAP, I posted this on Leibniz’ birthday!)

1. This man wears the best of all possible wigs, and he wears it well. Leibniz did everything—mathematics, linguistics, philosophy, logic, engineering, law, natural science—you name a topic, he probably dabbled in it. Polymathy is hot, and so are ostentatious wigs.

Eye candy AND brain candy.

2. Anyone who knows me knows that I think Voltaire is the sexiest man ever to live. I slobbered all over Candide when I first read it, and I see it as a proof of God that such wit could be combined with such good looks.

He can satire his way into my heart any day.

3. It feels fundamentally wrong to me to have Leibniz and Newton inhabiting the same list, but you have to admit—the guy looks badass. Setting aside the calculus issue, there are very few things Newton can’t take at least some credit for in the world of science. Plus, he shoved a darning needle behind his eye and moved it around to see if it distorted his vision. That’s dedication.

“I am the CALCULATOR…I will divide you by zero!”

4. Hume has a very confident look about him. And why shouldn’t he? After all, he did—single-handedly—take down the notions of induction and causation. And he did it while looking good. That jacket looks very sexy on him.

The missing shade of awesome.

5. I don’t know much about this attractive young man named d’Alembert, but he apparently studied vibrating strings, which sounds (no pun intended) really cool. He did argue, incorrectly, that the probability of a coin landing heads increased with each time it landed tails, but since that seems like common sense to most people, I can respect that.

“Mmm…strings.”

Yeah.