Euler

Euler, Leonard (1707-1783), a distinguished mathematician, who was born at Basel, and educated, first by his father, who was a clergyman, and then at the university under John Bernouilli. When 19 he was proximo accessit in a treatise on masting of vessels, invited by the Paris Academy of Sciences. Through his friends the Bernouillis he was called on to constitute the mathematical department in the St. Petersburg Academy, founded by Catherine I., and many hundred papers and dissertations are the proofs of his industry while there. For about twenty-five years from 1741 he was professor of mathematics at Berlin University, but the last sixteen years of his life were passed at St. Petersburg. He was a great advancer of the analytic method, which he applied also to mechanics, and he had a great share in the invention of achromatic telescopes. He also attempted to construct a theory of the tides, and wrote upon metaphysical and philosophical subjects. Among his many works are treatises on the Integral and the Differential Calculus, and an introduction to Algebra.