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Subscribe to continue. Mark Sappenfield. Our work isn't possible without your support. Digital subscription includes: Unlimited access to CSMonitor. The Monitor Daily email. One of the pioneers to be known in the field of mathematics from the 18 th Century is Leonhard Euler. Being a pastor himself, Paul wished his son to become a pastor too. Euler did his masters from University of Basel. After moving to Russia in , he served the Russian Navy as a medical lieutenant till The same year he joined St.
Petersburg Academy of Sciences as a Physics Professor with the help of his friend Daniel Bernoulli who headed the Mathematics department there. Major publications by Euler were made during his chairmanship in this academy. His first book titled as Mechanica, covered his analysis of Newtonian dynamics in mathematical form.
His other works covered fields of integral calculus, geometry, logarithmic functions, optics, mechanics etc. Euler became professor of physics at the Academy in and, since this allowed him to become a full member of the Academy, he was able to give up his Russian navy post.
Daniel Bernoulli held the senior chair in mathematics at the Academy but when he left St Petersburg to return to Basel in it was Euler who was appointed to this senior chair of mathematics. The financial improvement which came from this appointment allowed Euler to marry which he did on 7 January , marrying Katharina Gsell, the daughter of a painter from the St Petersburg Gymnasium.
Katharina, like Euler, was from a Swiss family. They had 13 children altogether although only five survived their infancy. Euler claimed that he made some of his greatest mathematical discoveries while holding a baby in his arms with other children playing round his feet. We will examine Euler's mathematical achievements later in this article but at this stage it is worth summarising Euler's work in this period of his career. This is done in [ 24 ] as follows The core of his research program was now set in place: number theory ; infinitary analysis including its emerging branches, differential equations and the calculus of variations ; and rational mechanics.
He viewed these three fields as intimately interconnected. Studies of number theory were vital to the foundations of calculus, and special functions and differential equations were essential to rational mechanics, which supplied concrete problems. The publication of many articles and his book Mechanica - 37 , which extensively presented Newtonian dynamics in the form of mathematical analysis for the first time, started Euler on the way to major mathematical work.
Euler's health problems began in when he had a severe fever and almost lost his life. However, he kept this news from his parents and members of the Bernoulli family back in Basel until he had recovered. In his autobiographical writings Euler says that his eyesight problems began in with overstrain due to his cartographic work and that by he had [ 24 ] However, Calinger in [ 24 ] argues that Euler's eyesight problems almost certainly started earlier and that the severe fever of was a symptom of the eyestrain.
He also argues that a portrait of Euler from suggests that by that stage the sight of his left eye was still good while that of his right eye was poor but not completely blind.
Calinger suggests that Euler's left eye became blind from a later cataract rather than eyestrain. By Euler had a very high reputation, having won the Grand Prize of the Paris Academy in and On both occasions he shared the first prize with others. Euler's reputation was to bring an offer to go to Berlin, but at first he preferred to remain in St Petersburg.
However political turmoil in Russia made the position of foreigners particularly difficult and contributed to Euler changing his mind. Accepting an improved offer Euler, at the invitation of Frederick the Great, went to Berlin where an Academy of Science was planned to replace the Society of Sciences. In a letter to a friend Euler wrote:- I can do just what I wish [ in my research ] The king calls me his professor, and I think I am the happiest man in the world.
Even while in Berlin Euler continued to receive part of his salary from Russia. For this remuneration he bought books and instruments for the St Petersburg Academy , he continued to write scientific reports for them, and he educated young Russians.
Maupertuis was the president of the Berlin Academy when it was founded in with Euler as director of mathematics. He deputised for Maupertuis in his absence and the two became great friends.
Euler undertook an unbelievable amount of work for the Academy [ 1 ] The king also charged Euler with practical problems, such as the project in of correcting the level of the Finow Canal At that time he also supervised the work on pumps and pipes of the hydraulic system at Sans Souci, the royal summer residence.
This was not the limit of his duties by any means. He served on the committee of the Academy dealing with the library and of scientific publications.
He served as an advisor to the government on state lotteries, insurance, annuities and pensions and artillery. On top of this his scientific output during this period was phenomenal. During the twenty-five years spent in Berlin, Euler wrote around articles. He wrote books on the calculus of variations; on the calculation of planetary orbits; on artillery and ballistics extending the book by Robins ; on analysis; on shipbuilding and navigation; on the motion of the moon; lectures on the differential calculus; and a popular scientific publication Letters to a Princess of Germany 3 vols.
In Maupertuis died and Euler assumed the leadership of the Berlin Academy , although not the title of President. The king was in overall charge and Euler was not now on good terms with Frederick despite the early good favour. Euler, who had argued with d'Alembert on scientific matters, was disturbed when Frederick offered d'Alembert the presidency of the Academy in However d'Alembert refused to move to Berlin but Frederick's continued interference with the running of the Academy made Euler decide that the time had come to leave.
In Euler returned to St Petersburg and Frederick was greatly angered at his departure. Soon after his return to Russia, Euler became almost entirely blind after an illness. In his home was destroyed by fire and he was able to save only himself and his mathematical manuscripts. A cataract operation shortly after the fire, still in , restored his sight for a few days but Euler seems to have failed to take the necessary care of himself and he became totally blind.
Because of his remarkable memory he was able to continue with his work on optics, algebra, and lunar motion. Amazingly after his return to St Petersburg when Euler was 59 he produced almost half his total works despite the total blindness. Euler of course did not achieve this remarkable level of output without help. He was helped by his sons, Johann Albrecht Euler who was appointed to the chair of physics at the Academy in St Petersburg in becoming its secretary in and Christoph Euler who had a military career.
Fuss , who was Euler's grandson-in-law, became his assistant in Yushkevich writes in [ 1 ] For example Euler credits Albrecht, Krafft and Lexell for their help with his page work on the motion of the moon, published in Fuss helped Euler prepare over articles for publication over a period on about seven years in which he acted as Euler's assistant, including an important work on insurance which was published in
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