Leonhard Euler: Jump To Navigationjump To Search
Leonhard Euler: Jump To Navigationjump To Search
Leonhard Euler
Basel, Switzerland
Scientific career
Berlin Academy
correspondent)
Signature
Notes
Laws[show]
Solid mechanics[show]
Fluid mechanics[show]
Rheology[show]
Scientists[show]
v
t
e
Geometry
Outline
History
Branches[show]
Concepts
Features
[show]
Zero-dimensional[show]
One-dimensional[show]
Two-dimensional[show]
Three-dimensional[show]
Four- / other-dimensional[show]
Geometers
by name[show]
by period[show]
v
t
e
Differential equations
Scope
[show]
Classification
Types[show]
Relation to processes[show]
Solution
General topics[show]
Solution methods[show]
People
[show]
v
t
e
Complex analysis
Complex numbers
Real number
Imaginary number
Complex plane
Complex conjugate
Unit complex number
Complex functions
Complex-valued function
Analytic function
Holomorphic function
Cauchy–Riemann equations
Formal power series
Basic Theory
People
Augustin-Louis Cauchy
Leonhard Euler
Carl Friedrich Gauss
Jacques Hadamard
Kiyoshi Oka
Bernhard Riemann
Karl Weierstrass
Mathematics portal
v
t
e
Contents
1Early life
2Career
o 2.1Saint Petersburg
o 2.2Berlin
3Personal life
o 3.1Eyesight deterioration
o 3.2Return to Russia and death
4Contributions to mathematics and physics
o 4.1Mathematical notation
o 4.2Analysis
o 4.3Number theory
o 4.4Graph theory
o 4.5Applied mathematics
o 4.6Physics and astronomy
o 4.7Logic
o 4.8Music
5Personal philosophy and religious beliefs
6Commemorations
7Selected bibliography
8See also
9References
o 9.1Sources
10Further reading
11External links
Early life
Leonhard Euler was born on 15 April 1707, in Basel, Switzerland, to Paul III Euler,
a pastor of the Reformed Church, and Marguerite née Brucker, another pastor's
daughter. He had two younger sisters, Anna Maria and Maria Magdalena, and a
younger brother, Johann Heinrich.[9] Soon after the birth of Leonhard, the Eulers
moved from Basel to the town of Riehen, Switzerland, where Leonhard spent most
of his childhood. Paul was a friend of the Bernoulli family; Johann Bernoulli, then
regarded as Europe's foremost mathematician, would eventually be the most
important influence on young Leonhard.
Euler's formal education started in Basel, where he was sent to live with his
maternal grandmother. In 1720, at age thirteen, he enrolled at the University of
Basel. In 1723, he received a Master of Philosophy with a dissertation that
compared the philosophies of Descartes and Newton. During that time, he was
receiving Saturday afternoon lessons from Johann Bernoulli, who quickly
discovered his new pupil's incredible talent for mathematics.[10] At that time Euler's
main studies included theology, Greek and Hebrew at his father's urging to become
a pastor, but Bernoulli convinced his father that Leonhard was destined to become
a great mathematician.
In 1726, Euler completed a dissertation on the propagation of sound with the
title De Sono.[11] At that time, he was unsuccessfully attempting to obtain a position
at the University of Basel. In 1727, he first entered the Paris Academy Prize
Problem competition; the problem that year was to find the best way to place
the masts on a ship. Pierre Bouguer, who became known as "the father of naval
architecture", won and Euler took second place. Euler later won this annual prize
twelve times.[12]
Career
Saint Petersburg
Around this time Johann Bernoulli's two sons, Daniel and Nicolaus, were working
at the Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg. On 31 July
1726, Nicolaus died of appendicitis after spending less than a year in
Russia.[13][14] When Daniel assumed his brother's position in the
mathematics/physics division, he recommended that the post in physiology that he
had vacated be filled by his friend Euler. In November 1726 Euler eagerly accepted
the offer, but delayed making the trip to Saint Petersburg while he unsuccessfully
applied for a physics professorship at the University of Basel.[15]
1957 Soviet Union stamp commemorating the 250th birthday of Euler. The text says: 250 years from the
birth of the great mathematician, academician Leonhard Euler.
Euler arrived in Saint Petersburg on 17 May 1727. He was promoted from his
junior post in the medical department of the academy to a position in the
mathematics department. He lodged with Daniel Bernoulli with whom he often
worked in close collaboration. Euler mastered Russian and settled into life in Saint
Petersburg. He also took on an additional job as a medic in the Russian Navy.[16]
The Academy at Saint Petersburg, established by Peter the Great, was intended to
improve education in Russia and to close the scientific gap with Western Europe.
As a result, it was made especially attractive to foreign scholars like Euler. The
academy possessed ample financial resources and a comprehensive library drawn
from the private libraries of Peter himself and of the nobility. Very few students
were enrolled in the academy to lessen the faculty's teaching burden. The
academy emphasized research and offered to its faculty both the time and the
freedom to pursue scientific questions.[12]
The Academy's benefactress, Catherine I, who had continued the progressive
policies of her late husband, died on the day of Euler's arrival. The Russian nobility
then gained power upon the ascension of the twelve-year-old Peter II. The nobility,
suspicious of the academy's foreign scientists, cut funding and caused other
difficulties for Euler and his colleagues.
Conditions improved slightly after the death of Peter II, and Euler swiftly rose
through the ranks in the academy and was made a professor of physics in 1731.
Two years later, Daniel Bernoulli, who was fed up with the censorship and hostility
he faced at Saint Petersburg, left for Basel. Euler succeeded him as the head of
the mathematics department.[17]
On 7 January 1734, he married Katharina Gsell (1707–1773), a daughter of Georg
Gsell, a painter from the Academy Gymnasium.[18] The young couple bought a
house by the Neva River. Of their thirteen children, only five survived childhood.[19]
Berlin
Stamp of the former German Democratic Republic honoring Euler on the 200th anniversary of his death.
Across the centre it shows his polyhedral formula, in English written as "v − e + f = 2".
Concerned about the continuing turmoil in Russia, Euler left St. Petersburg on 19
June 1741 to take up a post at the Berlin Academy, which he had been offered
by Frederick the Great of Prussia. He lived for 25 years in Berlin, where he wrote
over 380 articles. In Berlin, he published the two works for which he would become
most renowned: the Introductio in analysin infinitorum, a text on functions
published in 1748, and the Institutiones calculi differentialis,[20] published in 1755
on differential calculus.[21] In 1755, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal
Swedish Academy of Sciences.
In addition, Euler was asked to tutor Friederike Charlotte of Brandenburg-Schwedt,
the Princess of Anhalt-Dessau and Frederick's niece. Euler wrote over 200 letters
to her in the early 1760s, which were later compiled into a best-selling volume
entitled Letters of Euler on different Subjects in Natural Philosophy Addressed to a
German Princess.[22] This work contained Euler's exposition on various subjects
pertaining to physics and mathematics, as well as offering valuable insights into
Euler's personality and religious beliefs. This book became more widely read than
any of his mathematical works and was published across Europe and in the United
States. The popularity of the "Letters" testifies to Euler's ability to communicate
scientific matters effectively to a lay audience, a rare ability for a dedicated
research scientist.[21]
Despite Euler's immense contribution to the Academy's prestige, he eventually
incurred the ire of Frederick and ended up having to leave Berlin. The Prussian
king had a large circle of intellectuals in his court, and he found the mathematician
unsophisticated and ill-informed on matters beyond numbers and figures. Euler
was a simple, devoutly religious man who never questioned the existing social
order or conventional beliefs, in many ways the polar opposite of Voltaire, who
enjoyed a high place of prestige at Frederick's court. Euler was not a skilled
debater and often made it a point to argue subjects that he knew little about,
making him the frequent target of Voltaire's wit.[21] Frederick also expressed
disappointment with Euler's practical engineering abilities:
I wanted to have a water jet in my garden: Euler calculated the force of the wheels
necessary to raise the water to a reservoir, from where it should fall back through
channels, finally spurting out in Sanssouci. My mill was carried out geometrically
and could not raise a mouthful of water closer than fifty paces to the reservoir.
Vanity of vanities! Vanity of geometry![23]
Personal life
Eyesight deterioration
Euler's eyesight worsened throughout his mathematical career. In 1738, three
years after nearly expiring from fever, he became almost blind in his right eye, but
Euler rather blamed the painstaking work on cartography he performed for the St.
Petersburg Academy for his condition. Euler's vision in that eye worsened
throughout his stay in Germany, to the extent that Frederick referred to him as
"Cyclops". Euler remarked on his loss of vision, "Now I will have fewer
distractions."[24] He later developed a cataract in his left eye, which was discovered
in 1766. Just a few weeks after its discovery, a failed surgical restoration rendered
him almost totally blind. He was 59 years old then. However, his condition
appeared to have little effect on his productivity, as he compensated for it with his
mental calculation skills and exceptional memory. For example, Euler could repeat
the Aeneid of Virgil from beginning to end without hesitation, and for every page in
the edition he could indicate which line was the first and which the last. With the aid
of his scribes, Euler's productivity on many areas of study actually increased. He
produced, on average, one mathematical paper every week in the year
1775.[25] The Eulers bore a double name, Euler-Schölpi, the latter of which derives
from schelb and schief, signifying squint-eyed, cross-eyed, or crooked. This
suggests that the Eulers may have had a susceptibility to eye problems.[26]
Return to Russia and death
In 1760, with the Seven Years' War raging, Euler's farm in Charlottenburg was
ransacked by advancing Russian troops. Upon learning of this event, General Ivan
Petrovich Saltykov paid compensation for the damage caused to Euler's estate,
with Empress Elizabeth of Russia later adding a further payment of 4000 roubles—
an exorbitant amount at the time.[27] The political situation in Russia stabilized
after Catherine the Great's accession to the throne, so in 1766 Euler accepted an
invitation to return to the St. Petersburg Academy. His conditions were quite
exorbitant—a 3000 ruble annual salary, a pension for his wife, and the promise of
high-ranking appointments for his sons. All of these requests were granted. He
spent the rest of his life in Russia. However, his second stay in the country was
marred by tragedy. A fire in St. Petersburg in 1771 cost him his home, and almost
his life. In 1773, he lost his wife Katharina after 40 years of marriage.
Three years after his wife's death, Euler married her half-sister, Salome Abigail
Gsell (1723–1794).[28] This marriage lasted until his death. In 1782 he was elected a
Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[29]
In St. Petersburg on 18 September 1783, after a lunch with his family, Euler was
discussing the newly discovered planet Uranus and its orbit with a
fellow academician Anders Johan Lexell, when he collapsed from a brain
hemorrhage. He died a few hours later.[30] Jacob von Staehlin-Storcksburg wrote a
short obituary for the Russian Academy of Sciences and Russian
mathematician Nicolas Fuss, one of Euler's disciples, wrote a more detailed
eulogy,[31] which he delivered at a memorial meeting. In his eulogy for the French
Academy, French mathematician and philosopher Marquis de Condorcet, wrote:
il cessa de calculer et de vivre— ... he ceased to calculate and to live.[32]
mathematical constant e
Properties
Natural logarithm
Exponential function
Applications
compound interest
Euler's identity
Euler's formula
half-lives
o exponential growth and decay
Defining e
People
John Napier
Leonhard Euler
Related topics
Schanuel's conjecture
v
t
e
Notably, Euler directly proved the power series expansions for e and
the inverse tangent function. (Indirect proof via the inverse power series
technique was given by Newton and Leibniz between 1670 and 1680.) His
daring use of power series enabled him to solve the famous Basel problem in
1735 (he provided a more elaborate argument in 1741):[36]
Map of Königsberg in Euler's time showing the actual layout of the seven bridges,
highlighting the river Pregel and the bridges.
Classical mechanics
History
Timeline
Branches[show]
Fundamentals[show]
Formulations[show]
Core topics[show]
Rotation[show]
Scientists[hide]
Galileo
Huygens
Newton
Kepler
Horrocks
Halley
Euler
d'Alembert
Clairaut
Lagrange
Laplace
Hamilton
Poisson
Daniel Bernoulli
Johann Bernoulli
Cauchy
Categories[show]
v
t
e
where
where
Euler's diagram