Leonhard Euler: Life, Work and Legacy

The year 2007 marks the 300th anniversary of the birth of one of the Enlightenment’s most important mathematicians and scientists, Leonhard Euler. This volume is a collection of 24 essays by some of the world’s best Eulerian scholars from seven different countries about Euler, his life and his work. Some of the essays are historical, including much previously unknown information about Euler’s life, his activities in the St. Petersburg Academy, the influence of the Russian Princess Dashkova, and Euler’s philosophy. Others describe his influence on the subsequent growth of European mathematics and physics in the 19th century. Still others give technical details of Euler’s innovations in probability, number theory, geometry, analysis, astronomy, mechanics and other fields of mathematics and science. - Over 20 essays by some of the best historians of mathematics and science, including Ronald Calinger, Peter Hoffmann, Curtis Wilson, Kim Plofker, Victor Katz, Ruediger Thiele, David Richeson, Robin Wilson, Ivor Grattan-Guinness and Karin Reich - New details of Euler's life in two essays, one by Ronald Calinger and one he co-authored with Elena Polyakhova - New information on Euler's work in differential geometry, series, mechanics, and other important topics including his influence in the early 19th century

Euler was not only by far the most productive mathematician in the history of mankind, but also one of the greatest scholars of all time. He attained, like only a few scholars, a degree of popularity and fame which may well be compared with that of Galilei, Newton, or Einstein. Moreover he was a cosmopolitan in the truest sense of the word; he lived during his first twenty years in Basel, was active altogether for more than thirty years in Petersburg and for a quarter of a century in Berlin. Leonhard Euler’s unusually rich life and broadly diversified activity in the immediate vicinity of important personalities which have made history, may well justify an exposition. This book is based in part on unpublished sources and comes right out of the current research on Euler. It is entirely free of formulae as it has been written for a broad audience with interests in the history of culture and science.

The year 2007 marks the 300th anniversary of the birth of one of the Enlightenments most important mathematicians and scientists, Leonhard Euler. This volume is a collection of 24 essays by some of the worlds best Eulerian scholars from seven different countries about Euler, his life and his work. Some of the essays are historical, including much previously unknown information about Eulers life, his activities in the St. Petersburg Academy, the influence of the Russian Princess Dashkova, and Eulers philosophy. Others describe his influence on the subsequent growth of European mathematics and physics in the 19th century. Still others give technical details of Eulers innovations in probability, number theory, geometry, analysis, astronomy, mechanics and other fields of mathematics and science.

This book primarily serves as a historical research monograph on the biographical sketch and career of Leonhard Euler and his major contributions to numerous areas in the mathematical and physical sciences. It contains fourteen chapters describing Euler''s works on number theory, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, differential and integral calculus, analysis, infinite series and infinite products, ordinary and elliptic integrals and special functions, ordinary and partial differential equations, calculus of variations, graph theory and topology, mechanics and ballistic research, elasticity and fluid mechanics, physics and astronomy, probability and statistics. The book is written to provide a definitive impression of Euler''s personal and professional life as well as of the range, power, and depth of his unique contributions. This tricentennial tribute commemorates Euler the great man and Euler the universal mathematician of all time. Based on the author''s historically motivated method of teaching, special attention is given to demonstrate that Euler''s work had served as the basis of research and developments of mathematical and physical sciences for the last 300 years. An attempt is also made to examine his research and its relation to current mathematics and science. Based on a series of Euler''s extraordinary contributions, the historical development of many different subjects of mathematical sciences is traced with a linking commentary so that it puts the reader at the forefront of current research. Erratum. Sample Chapter(s). Chapter 1: Mathematics Before Leonhard Euler (434 KB). Contents: Mathematics Before Leonhard Euler; Brief Biographical Sketch and Career of Leonhard Euler; Euler''s Contributions to Number Theory and Algebra; Euler''s Contributions to Geometry and Spherical Trigonometry; Euler''s Formula for Polyhedra, Topology and Graph Theory; Euler''s Contributions to Calculus and Analysis; Euler''s Contributions to the Infinite Series and the Zeta Function; Euler''s Beta and Gamma Functions and Infinite Products; Euler and Differential Equations; The Euler Equations of Motion in Fluid Mechanics; Euler''s Contributions to Mechanics and Elasticity; Euler''s Work on the Probability Theory; Euler''s Contributions to Ballistics; Euler and His Work on Astronomy and Physics. Readership: Undergraduate and graduate students of mathematics, mathematics education, physics, engineering and science. As well as professionals and prospective mathematical scientists.

Leonhard Euler's Letters to a German Princess: A Milestone in the History of Physics Textbooks and More is a milestone in the history of physics textbooks and the instruction of women in the sciences. It also covers views of its author on epistemology, religion, and innovations in scientific equipment, including telescopes and microscopes. Today, 250 years later, we study this work of Euler's as a foundation for the history of physics teaching and analyze the letters from an historical and pedagogical point of view.

An acclaimed biography of the Enlightenment's greatest mathematician This is the first full-scale biography of Leonhard Euler (1707–1783), one of the greatest mathematicians and theoretical physicists of all time. In this comprehensive and authoritative account, Ronald Calinger connects the story of Euler's eventful life to the astonishing achievements that place him in the company of Archimedes, Newton, and Gauss. Drawing on Euler's massive published works and correspondence, this biography sets Euler's work in its multilayered context—personal, intellectual, institutional, political, cultural, religious, and social. It is a story of nearly incessant accomplishment, from Euler's fundamental contributions to almost every area of pure and applied mathematics in his time—especially calculus, mechanics, and optics—to his advances in shipbuilding, telescopes, acoustics, ballistics, cartography, chronology, and music theory.

Sandifer has been studying Euler for decades and is one of the world’s leading experts on his work. This volume is the second collection of Sandifer’s “How Euler Did It” columns. Each is a jewel of historical and mathematical exposition. The sum total of years of work and study of the most prolific mathematician of history, this volume will leave you marveling at Euler’s clever inventiveness and Sandifer’s wonderful ability to explicate and put it all in context.

The Early Mathematics of Leonhard Euler gives an article-by-article description of Leonhard Euler's early mathematical works; the 50 or so mathematical articles he wrote before he left St. Petersburg in 1741 to join the Academy of Frederick the Great in Berlin. These early pieces contain some of Euler's greatest work, the Konigsberg bridge problem, his solution to the Basel problem, and his first proof of the Euler-Fermat theorem. It also presents important results that we seldom realize are due to Euler; that mixed partial derivatives are (usually) equal, our f(x) f(x) notation, and the integrating factor in differential equations. The books shows how contributions in diverse fields are related, how number theory relates to series, which, in turn, relate to elliptic integrals and then to differential equations. There are dozens of such strands in this beautiful web of mathematics. At the same time, we see Euler grow in power and sophistication, from a young student when at 18 he published his first work on differential equations (a paper with a serious flaw) to the most celebrated mathematician and scientist of his time. It is a portrait of the world's most exciting mathematics between 1725 and 1741, rich in technical detail, woven with connections within Euler's work and with the work of other mathematicians in other times and places, laced with historical context.

List of Rhodes scholars, 1904-1915: v.2 p. [145]-161. Vol. for 1934- include Addresses and occupations of Rhodes scholars and other Oxonians (called 1934-36, Addresses and occupations of Rhodes scholars).

This book examines the huge scope of mathematical areas explored and developed by Leonhard Euler.

All historians of mathematics and students of the field will want a copy of this remarkable resource on their bookshelves.

"People like myself, who truly feel at home in several countries, are not strictly at home anywhere," writes Abraham Pais, one of the world's leading theoretical physicists, near the beginning of this engrossing chronicle of his life on two continents. The author of an immensely popular biography of Einstein, Subtle Is the Lord, Pais writes engagingly for a general audience. His "tale" describes his period of hiding in Nazi-occupied Holland (he ended the war in a Gestapo prison) and his life in America, particularly at the newly organized Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, then directed by the brilliant and controversial physicist Robert Oppenheimer. Pais tells fascinating stories about Oppenheimer, Einstein, Bohr, Sakharov, Dirac, Heisenberg, and von Neumann, as well as about nonscientists like Chaim Weizmann, George Kennan, Erwin Panofsky, and Pablo Casals. His enthusiasm about science and life in general pervades a book that is partly a memoir, partly a travel commentary, and partly a history of science. Pais's charming recollections of his years as a university student become somber with the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940. He was presented with an unusual deadline for his graduate work: a German decree that July 14, 1941, would be the final date on which Dutch Jews could be granted a doctoral degree. Pais received the degree, only to be forced into hiding from the Nazis in 1943, practically next door to Anne Frank. After the war, he went to the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen to work with Niels Bohr. 1946 began his years at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he worked first as a Fellow and then as a Professor until his move to Rockefeller University in 1963. Combining his understanding of disparate social and political worlds, Pais comments just as insightfully on Oppenheimer's ordeals during the McCarthy era as he does on his own and his European colleagues' struggles during World War II. Originally published in 1997. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This classic study notes the first appearance of a mathematical symbol and its origin, the competition it encountered, its spread among writers in different countries, its rise to popularity, its eventual decline or ultimate survival. The author’s coverage of obsolete notations — and what we can learn from them — is as comprehensive as those which have survived and still enjoy favor. Originally published in 1929 in a two-volume edition, this monumental work is presented here in one volume.

The writings of Newton, Leibniz, Pascal, Riemann, Bernoulli, and others in a comprehensive selection of 125 treatises dating from the Renaissance to the late 19th century — most unavailable elsewhere.

The positive response to the publication of Blanton's English translations of Euler's "Introduction to Analysis of the Infinite" confirmed the relevance of this 240 year old work and encouraged Blanton to translate Euler's "Foundations of Differential Calculus" as well. The current book constitutes just the first 9 out of 27 chapters. The remaining chapters will be published at a later time. With this new translation, Euler's thoughts will not only be more accessible but more widely enjoyed by the mathematical community.

This textbook introduces the representation theory of algebras by focusing on two of its most important aspects: the Auslander–Reiten theory and the study of the radical of a module category. It starts by introducing and describing several characterisations of the radical of a module category, then presents the central concepts of irreducible morphisms and almost split sequences, before providing the definition of the Auslander–Reiten quiver, which encodes much of the information on the module category. It then turns to the study of endomorphism algebras, leading on one hand to the definition of the Auslander algebra and on the other to tilting theory. The book ends with selected properties of representation-finite algebras, which are now the best understood class of algebras. Intended for graduate students in representation theory, this book is also of interest to any mathematician wanting to learn the fundamentals of this rapidly growing field. A graduate course in non-commutative or homological algebra, which is standard in most universities, is a prerequisite for readers of this book.