He didn't get it, but meanwhile Daniel Bernoulli had taken up a position at the St Petersburg Academy in Russia, and invited Euler to join him there. Later, Euler actually won the prize - twelve times!Įuler next applied for the Chair of Mathematics at the University of Basel. The Paris Academy had proposed a prize problem involving the placing of masts on a sailing ship, and Euler's memoir, while not gaining the prize, received an honourable mention. His first significant mathematical achievement occurred when he was just twenty. I had to register in the faculty of theology, and I was to apply myself to the Greek and Hebrew languages, but not much progress was made, for I turned most of my time to mathematical studies, and by my happy fortune the Saturday visits to Johann Bernoulli continued.Įventually, Bernoulli persuaded Euler's reluctant father that his talented son was destined to become a great mathematician, and Euler left the ministry. Euler also became closeįriends with Johann's sons, Daniel and Nicholas, although Nicholas was to die soon after.Įuler took his Master's degree in 1724, at the age of 17, and entered divinity school to train for the ministry: While at the University, he encountered Johann Bernoulli, possibly the finest mathematician of his day, who was impressed with Euler's mathematical abilities and agreed to give him private teaching every Saturday, quickly realising that his pupil was something out of the ordinary. On entering the University of Basel at the age of 14, not an unusual age in those days, the young Euler duly studied theology and Hebrew, law and philosophy.
Leonhard Euler's father was a Calvinist pastor of modest means who wished his son to follow him into the ministry.
(but for different reasons), and he returned to St Petersburg in 1766 where he spent the rest of his life, eventually dying in 1783. Things eventually got so bad there that he went to Berlin in 1741, where he stayed for twenty-five years. At the age of 20 he went to Russia, to the St Petersburg Academy, where he became head of the mathematics division. He was born in Basel, Switzerland, on 15 April 1707, where he grew up and went to university. Not surprisingly, many concepts are named after him: Euler's constant, Euler's polyhedron formula, the Euler line of a triangle, Euler's equations of motion, Eulerian graphs, Euler's pentagonal formula for partitions, and many others.Įuler's life can be divided into four periods.
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