Biography on Leonhard Euler (Essay Sample)

Biography on Leonhard Euler
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Biography on Leonhard Euler
Introduction
Leonhard Euler is a renowned Swiss mathematician and physicist and is appreciated for his efforts in pure mathematics. Euler's work is engraved in his huge contribution in geometry, mechanics, calculus and also number theory. Additionally, he also created the methods of solving problems in the area of observational astronomy and illustrates crucial applications of mathematics used in technology, as well as public affairs (Bradley & Sandifer, 2007, p. 61).
Leonhard Euler was born on April 15 in the year 1707 in Basel, Switzerland. Euler was born to Paul Euler, who was a religious man and worked as a pastor within the ministry of the Reformed Church. His mother, Marguerite Brucker was a pastor's daughter, and he had two younger sisters who were Anna Maria and Maria Magdalena. After Euler's birth, the whole family relocated to the area of Riehen town, and this is where he grew up. At the age of thirteen, Euler enrolled at the University of Basel where he received a Master of Philosophy in the year 1723 having completed a dissertation that analyzed the philosophies of both Descartes and Newton. He started to study theology in 1723 even though it was not his passion, but his father’s suggestion. Euler admitted that even though he was a religious man, he had no interest in studying theology, Greek and Hebrew as his father wished and felt a desire to do mathematics. Johann Bernoulli saw that Euler was a great mathematician and persuaded Paul Euler to let Euler undertake math. In the year 1727, Euler partook in the annual Paris Academy Prize Problem where they were expected to find the best technique of placing masts into a ship. He came second in the competition, but later on he won this annual prize about twelve times (Bradley & Sandifer, 2007, p. 62).
In 1726, Euler received an offer to teach and research at the Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences located in St Petersburg. He moved to Russia and started working in the department of physiology in the year 1727, but he swiftly rose into another spot in the department of mathematics. Euler was motivated and even learned the Russian language and managed to secure another position as a medic within the Russian Navy where he lasted from 1727 to around 1730. In 1733, his success became eminent when he was given the spot of head of mathematics after Daniel Bernoulli decided to exit the academy. Euler eventually fell in love with Katharina Gsell a girl born of Georg Gsell, a man who was tasked with painting the inside of the Academy Gymnasium, and they married in 1734. They bought a house around Neva River, and they bore 13 children altogether, but only five of them survived their infancy (Bradley & Sandifer, 2007, p. 62).
The constant conflicts and war occurring in Russia forced Euler to leave St. Petersburg, and he relocated to Berlin. He began work at the Berlin Academy in 1741 having been hired by Frederick the Great of Prussia. Euler became successful in the twenty years he stayed in Berlin having written over 380 articles, and two of them were published and are still renowned. These two articles are the Introductio in analysin infinitorum a piece published in 1748 and written solely about mathematical functions, and the institutiones calculi differentialis that was published in 1755 and is based on differential calculus. Euler had another success when he was asked to instruct Friederike Charlotte of Brandenburg-Schwedt, who was the Princess of Anhalt-Dessau. He wrote about 200 letters in the 1760s addressed to her, and they were later assembled and published where they became best-selling volume in that period. The letters focused on Euler's interpretation of various areas of physics and mathematics, including his personal views on matters of personality and religious beliefs. The success of these letters were attributed to Euler's ability to simplify mathematical and physics works into a form that could be easily interpreted by a layman (Bradley & Sandifer, 2007, p. 63).
Euler began experiencing health problems in late 1730s especially with his eyesight. He endured a serious sickness of fever in 1735 that caused his right eye to become blind. Euler linked his health problems and blindness to a cartography project he was undertaking while working in St. Petersburg. Additionally, his vision became worse in his entire stay in Germany causing him to have problems with his health. In 1766, he suffered another set-back as his left eye was diagnosed with cataract and within a few weeks he became completely blind. However, even after his blindness, Euler continued with his work and productivity using his intense memory and quick mental calculations. For example, Euler had the capability of repeating the Aeneid of Virgil from the start to its end and indicated where the first line started and the last line in the piece. Using scribes, he continued his study and even generated an average of one mathematical piece each week in the year 1775 (Fellmann, Gautschi & Gautschi, 2007, p. 163).
Euler's most important work include mathematical notation especially the introduction of functions. He invented the f(x), a notation that indicates a function 'f' used in the argument 'x'. Additionally, he pioneered the modern annotation used in trigonometric functions, the symbol 'e', which is used as a base for the natural logarithm. He came up with the Greek letter ‘Σ' used for summations and also the ‘i’ that is employed in imaginary units. Euler outlined the application of exponential functions, as well as logarithms when dealing with analytic proofs. (Bradley & Sandifer, 2007, p...