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Essay / The Life of Leonhard Euler - 1038
The Life of Leonhard EulerLeonhard Paul Euler was born on April 15, 1707 in Basel, Switzerland and died on November 18, 1783 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. From an early age, Euler was discovered by many, including his father (Paulus) and his instructor (Johann I Bernoulli), to be extraordinarily proficient in mathematics. When he was only 15 years old, Euler completed his studies at the University of Basel. Euler wrote an award-winning article explaining the best arrangement of masts on a sailboat when he was 19 years old. The book was entitled Meditationes super problemate nautico… and the prize he received was awarded to him by the Paris Academy of Sciences. In 1727 he submitted a thesis on sound (Dissertatio physica de sono) in Basel. Euler was refused a professorship in physics. His instructor Bernoulli's sons, Nicholas and Daniel, urged him to advance to the St. Petersburg Academy in Russia, which could meet his level of positive tenacity in the field of mathematics and physics. Once in St. Petersburg, Euler met Jacob Hermann, Daniel Bernoulli and an amateur mathematician and diplomat, Christian Goldbach. He wrote more than 100 scientific articles and advanced his fundamental work on mechanics between 1727 and 1741. Euler was invited by Frederick the Great to visit the Akademie in Berlin. He spent 25 years in Berlin, which did not hinder his academic work. Among other pieces, he created the Calculus of Variations, rewrote and translated Benjamin Robins' Treatise on Artillery, and wrote the Introductio in analysin infinitorum. Euler was invited to return to St. Petersburg by Katherine II following disputes with the Court in 1766. He returned with the locals who admired him with the honorable...... middle of paper ..... .ary 1). Leonhard Euler: his life, the man and his work. SIAM Review, 50(1), 3-33. Retrieved April 15, 2014. O'Conner, JJ & Robertson, E.F. (September 1998). Leonhard Euler. Retrieved April 20, 2014 from the MacTutor History Of Mathematics archive: http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Printonly/Euler.html Sun, V. (August 5, 2013). Biography. Retrieved April 15, 2014 from Leonhard Euler: http://www.leonhardeuler.comUnknown. (2014). Biography of Léonhard Euler. From the biography: http://www.biography.com/people/leonhard-euler-21342391#awesm=~oBxVtdvbUYEk4UWilkins, DR (1908). Léonhard Euler (1707 - 1783). In W. W. Ball, A Brief Account of the History of Mathematics (Vol. IV, pp. 323-329). New York, New York, United States of America: Dover Publications, Inc. Accessed April 20, 2014, from http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/HistMath/People/Euler/RouseBall/RB_Euler.html