Leonhard Euler Biography

Mathematics has played an integral part in daily life since the beginning of time. There have been many individuals responsible for paving the road to higher mathematics. Among these individuals is a man who was a physicist and scholar and helped to bring life to modern mathematics. His name was Leonhard Euler. Although he was born in the 18th century, Euler’s mathematic innovations still apply to the world of mathematics that we experience today.

It was a warm spring day (well I would assume that it would have been a warm spring day) when Leonhard Euler graced the world with his presence. April 15, 1707, marked the day that a brilliant mathematician entered into the world. It would become apparent in his early childhood that Euler had a knack for mathematics. Although his abilities could be considered genetic as his father, Paul Euler, was a brilliant mathematician himself who studied under Jakob Bernoulli.

Euler was born in Basel, Switzerland where he was destined to be a clergyman. Yet, it was obvious that Euler had a different calling in life. His aptitude for mathematics was evident even in his early life. His propensity for higher learning was so great that he studied with Johann Bernoulli, who was Jakob’s brother, as a young boy. His time with Johann urged his sense of mathematic discovery. Euler attended University of Basel where he earned his Master’s degree while he was still a teenager. While at the school he barely learned any mathematics because the school was basically a poor school. Due to his own mathematic curiosity and Johann’s private lessons, at the under-ripened age of 16, Euler became a college graduate with a Master’s degree. His curiosity in mathematics allowed Euler to study the works of other brilliant ...

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... all their squares, cubes, and fourth, fifth, and sixth powers. An impressive feat for anyone, but his abilities did not stop there. He was also able to do mental calculations up to at least fifty places of accuracy. He also completely memorized Virgil’s Aeneid in Latin. The text in its entirety is 63,719 words long.

In a summary, Euler was an impressive man from his contributions to higher level mathematics, to his ability to persevere through his condition of being blind, to having one of the most impressive memories in history. Euler may not have been the father of calculus but he was the one who nurtured it and gave life to some of the greatest mathematical concepts, formulas, equations, and numbers. Guass put it best when he said, “The study of Euler’s works will remain the best school for the different fields of mathematics and nothing else can replace it.”