Who is Leonhard Euler?
Leonhard Euler is the most prolific mathematician in history. He was born in Basel, Switzerland, in 1707, and began his mathematics education under Johann Bernoulli at the age of 14. At 20 he arrived in Saint Petersburg to join the new Scientific Academy there. Over the next 50 years, he worked in both Saint Petersburg and Berlin, and worked alongside with or corresponded with the almost all the leading mathematicians and scientists of the 18th Century. During his lifetime, Euler wrote over 800 papers covering every branch of mathematics known in his time, and including such applied topics as mechanics, fluid mechanics, naval science, solar and lunar motion, the tides, cartography, astronomical motion and precessions, acoustics, and optics. He wrote an enormously influential series of calculus textbooks, as well as books on over a dozen other mathematical and scientific fields. Euler’s life (1707-1783) fits neatly into the European Enlightenment, and he was the towering figure of Europ
