Mathematician of the week

Leonhard Euler

1707 – 1783

Where to begin with this gentleman? Well he was born in Basel and when Euler was still young his father trained him in some elementary mathematics (his father had been friends with another mathematician known as Mr Bernoulli). His father actually wanted him to follow him into the church and so he sent the still young Euler to Basel University where he began a general education. However (luckily for us) he was far more interested in mathematics and with the help of that Mr Bernoulli he managed to change courses and purely study mathematics.

Now towards the end of 1720’s (he was around about 19!) Euler completed his studies at the university and he applied for a position in the physics department at Basel. However he was unsuccessful and so off he went to St Petersburg. During his time in St Petersburg Euler served in the Russian navy. He managed to leave the navy due to his rise to professor of physics (well done to him).

Euler worked in St Petersburg until around 1750 and then he left for Berlin (Russia wasn’t the best place for a foreigner at this moment in time). He stayed in Berlin for around a decade under the employment of the Academy there. He did return to St Petersburg after this and this is when he lost his eyesight and he was totally blind by the 1770’s. This did not stop his exceptional output as he published half of his overall work when blind! (You can’t even imagine this!) Euler eventually died in 1783 although the Academy in St Petersburg continued to publish his work for the next 50 years.

His body of work is massive no other mathematician has come close to this. He developed: mathematical analysis made contributions to number theory and he solved the Basel problem (what is the exact solution of the following sum? ∑ (1/n²) ). He also made contributions to calculus and geometry. He investigated planetary motion and the three body problem. He introduced i for the square root of -1, f(x) to represent a function, e for the base of natural logs, π for pi and ∑ for summation and even more notation!

I could easily go into more detail and list more topics and notations but this would take me half a lifetime!

I can say I have not given this man the justice he deserves in this post. (I would end up writing a book and I don’t want to!) He was one of the greatest mathematicians ever. Well done Mr Euler what a lad!

Again I apologise if I have missed any obvious achievements or made any glaring mistakes.