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Thursday, September 23, 2021

09-23-2021-0653 - Leonhard Euler 1707 1783

Leonhard Euler (/ˈɔɪlər/ OY-lər;[2] German: [ˈɔʏlɐ] (listen);[a] 15 April 1707 – 18 September 1783) was a Swiss mathematicianphysicistastronomergeographerlogician and engineer who founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made pioneering and influential discoveries in many other branches of mathematics such as analytic number theorycomplex analysis, and infinitesimal calculus. He introduced much of modern mathematical terminology and notation, including the notion of a mathematical function.[3] He is also known for his work in mechanicsfluid dynamicsopticsastronomy and music theory.

Euler is held to be one of the greatest mathematicians in history and the greatest of the 18th century. A statement attributed to Pierre-Simon Laplace expresses Euler's influence on mathematics: "Read Euler, read Euler, he is the master of us all."[4][5] Carl Friedrich Gauss remarked: "The study of Euler's works will remain the best school for the different fields of mathematics, and nothing else can replace it."[6] Euler is also widely considered to be the most prolific; his more than 850 publications are collected in 92 quarto volumes,[7] (including his Opera Omnia) more than anyone else in the field.[8] He spent most of his adult life in Saint PetersburgRussia, and in Berlin, then the capital of Prussia.

Euler is credited for popularizing the Greek letter π (lowercase pi) to denote Archimedes' constant (the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter), as well as first employing the term f(x) to describe a function's y-axis, the letter i to express the imaginary unit √-1, and the Greek letter Σ (capital sigma) to express summations. He gave the current definition of the constant e, the base of the natural logarithm, still known as Euler's number.[9] Euler was also the first practitioner of graph theory (partly as a solution for the problem of the Seven Bridges of Königsberg). He became famous – among others – for solving the Basel Problem, after proving that the sum of the infinite series of squared integer reciprocals equaled exactly, π 2/6 and for discovering that the sum of the numbers of edges and faces minus vertices of a polyhedron equals 2, a number now commonly known as the Euler characteristic. In the field of physics, Euler reformulated Newton's laws of physics into new laws in his two-volume work Mechanica to explain the motion of rigid bodies more easily. He also made substantial contributions to the study of elastic deformations of solid objects.

Leonhard Euler
Leonhard Euler.jpg
Portrait by Jakob Emanuel Handmann (1753)
Born15 April 1707
Basel, Switzerland
Died18 September 1783 (aged 76)
[OS: 7 September 1783]
Alma materUniversity of Basel (MPhil)
Known forContributions
Namesakes
Spouse(s)Katharina Gsell (1734–1773)
Salome Abigail Gsell (1776–1783)
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics and physics
InstitutionsImperial Russian Academy of Sciences
Berlin Academy
ThesisDissertatio physica de sono (Physical dissertation on sound) (1726)
Doctoral advisorJohann Bernoulli
Doctoral studentsJohann Hennert
Other notable studentsNicolas Fuss
Stepan Rumovsky
Joseph-Louis Lagrange(epistolary correspondent)
Anders Johan Lexell
Signature
Euler's signature.svg
Notes
He is the father of the mathematician Johann Euler.
He is listed by an academic genealogy as the equivalent to the doctoral advisor of Joseph Louis Lagrange.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonhard_Euler

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