Leonhard Euler

(15 April 1707 - 18 September 1783)

He was a pioneering Swiss mathematician and physicist. He made

important discoveries in fields as diverse as infinitesimal calculus and
graph theory. He also introduced much of the modern mathematical
terminology and notation, particularly for mathematical analysis, such as
the notion of a mathematical function.
Leonhard Euler was one of the giants of 18th Century
mathematics. Like the Bernoulli’s, he was born in Basel, Switzerland, and
he studied for a while under Johann Bernoulli at Basel University. But, partly due to the overwhelming
dominance of the Bernoulli family in Swiss mathematics, and the difficulty of finding a good position and
recognition in his hometown, he spent most of his academic life in Russia and Germany, especially in the
burgeoning St. Petersburg of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great.
Despite a long life and thirteen children, Euler had more than his fair share of tragedies and deaths, and
even his blindness later in life did not slow his prodigious output - his collected works comprise nearly 900 books
and, in the year 1775, he is said to have produced on average one mathematical paper every week - as he
compensated for it with his mental calculation skills and photographic memory (for example, he could repeat
the Aeneid of Virgil from beginning to end without hesitation, and for every page in the edition he could indicate
which line was the first and which the last).
Today, Euler is considered one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. His interests covered almost
all aspects of mathematics, from geometry to calculus to trigonometry to algebra to number theory, as well as
optics, astronomy, cartography, mechanics, weights and measures and even the theory of music.

Much of the notation used by mathematicians today

- including e, i, f(x), ∑, and the use of a, b and c as constants
and x, y and z as unknowns - was either created, popularized
or standardized by Euler. His efforts to standardize these and
other symbols (including π and the trigonometric functions)
helped to internationalize mathematics and to encourage
collaboration on problems.
He even managed to combine several of these
together in an amazing feat of mathematical alchemy to
produce one of the most beautiful of all mathematical
equations, eiπ = -1, sometimes known as Euler’s Identity. This
equation combines arithmetic, calculus, trigonometry and
complex analysis into what has been called "the most
remarkable formula in mathematics", "uncanny and
sublime" and "filled with cosmic beauty", among other
descriptions. Another such discovery, often known simply as
Euler’s Formula, is eix = cosx + isinx. In fact, in a recent poll of mathematicians, three of the top five most
beautiful formulae of all time were Euler’s. He seemed to have an instinctive ability to demonstrate the deep
relationships between trigonometry, exponentials and complex numbers.
The discovery that initially sealed Euler’s reputation was announced in 1735 and concerned the
calculation of infinite sums. It was called the Basel problem after the Bernoulli’s had tried and failed to solve it,
and asked what was the precise sum of the of the reciprocals of the squares of all the natural numbers to infinity
i.e. 1⁄12 + 1⁄22 + 1⁄32 + 1⁄42 ... (a zeta function using a zeta constant of 2). Euler’s friend Daniel Bernoulli had
estimated the sum to be about 13⁄5, but Euler’s superior method yielded the exact but rather unexpected result
of π2⁄6. He also showed that the infinite series was equivalent to an infinite product of prime numbers, an
identity which would later inspire Riemann’s investigation of complex zeta functions.
Also in 1735, Euler solved an intransigent mathematical and logical problem, known as the Seven Bridges
of Königsberg Problem, which had perplexed scholars for many years, and in doing so laid the foundations of
graph theory and presaged the important mathematical idea of topology. The city of Königsberg in Prussia
(modern-day Kaliningrad in Russia) was set on both sides of the Pregel River, and included two large islands
which were connected to each other and the mainland by seven bridges. The problem was to find a route
through the city that would cross each bridge once and only once.
In fact, Euler proved that the problem has no solution, but in doing so he made the important conceptual
leap of pointing out that the choice of route within each landmass is irrelevant and the only important feature
is the sequence of bridges crossed. This allowed him to reformulate the problem in abstract terms, replacing
each land mass with an abstract node and each bridge with an abstract connection. This resulted in a
mathematical structure called a “graph”, a pictorial representation made up of points (vertices) connected by
non-intersecting curves (arcs), which may be distorted in any way without changing the graph itself. In this way,
Euler was able to deduce that, because the four land masses in the original problem are touched by an odd
number of bridges, the existence of a walk traversing each bridge once only inevitably leads to a contradiction.
If Königsberg had had one fewer bridges, on the other hand, with an even number of bridges leading to each
piece of land, then a solution would have been possible.

The list of theorems and methods pioneered by Euler is

immense, and largely outside the scope of an entry-level
study such as this, but mention could be made of just
some of them:
the demonstration of geometrical properties such as
Euler’s Line and Euler’s Circle;
the definition of the Euler Characteristic χ (chi) for the
surfaces of polyhedral, whereby the number of vertices
minus the number of edges plus the number of faces
always equals 2 (see table at right);
a new method for solving quartic equations;
the Prime Number Theorem, which describes the
asymptotic distribution of the prime numbers;
Proofs (and in some cases disproofs) of some of Fermat’s theorems and conjectures;
the discovery of over 60 amicable numbers (pairs of numbers for which the sum of the divisors of one number
equals the other number), although some were actually incorrect;
 a method of calculating integrals with complex limits (foreshadowing the development of modern complex
analysis);
the calculus of variations, including its best-known result, the Euler-Lagrange equation; a proof of the
infinitude of primes, using the divergence of the harmonic series;
the integration of Leibniz's differential calculus with Newton's Method of Fluxions into a form of calculus we
would recognize today, as well as the development of tools to make it easier to apply calculus to real physical
problems

The Seven Bridges of Königsberg Problem

In 1766, Euler accepted an invitation from Catherine the Great

to return to the St. Petersburg Academy, and spent the rest of his life
in Russia. However, his second stay in the country was marred by
tragedy, including a fire in 1771 which cost him his home (and almost
his life), and the loss in 1773 of his dear wife of 40 years, Katharina.
He later married Katharina's half-sister, Salome Abigail, and this
marriage would last until his death from a brain hemorrhage in 1783.
 Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi
(10 December 1804 – 18 February 1851)
He was a German mathematician, who made fundamental
contributions to elliptic functions, dynamics, differential equations,
and number theory. His name is occasionally written as Carolus
Gustavus Iacobus Iacobi in his Latin books, and his first name is
sometimes given as Karl.

Jacobi was the first Jewish mathematician to be appointed

professor at a German university.

One of Jacobi's greatest accomplishments was his theory

of elliptic functions and their relation to the elliptic theta function. This was developed in his great
treatise Fundamenta nova theoriae functionum ellipticarum (1829), and in later papers in Crelle's Journal. Theta
functions are of great importance in mathematical physics because of their role in the inverse problem for
periodic and quasi-periodic flows. The equations of motion are integrable in terms of Jacobi's elliptic
functions in the well-known cases of the pendulum, the Euler top, the symmetric Lagrange top in a gravitational
field and the Kepler problem (planetary motion in a central gravitational field).

He also made fundamental contributions in the study of differential equations and to rational mechanics,
notably the Hamilton–Jacobi theory.

It was in algebraic development that Jacobi's peculiar power mainly lay, and he made important
contributions of this kind to many areas of mathematics, as shown by his long list of papers in Crelle's Journal
and elsewhere from 1826 onwards. One of his maxims was: 'Invert, always invert' ('man muss immer
umkehren'), expressing his belief that the solution of many hard problems can be clarified by re-expressing them
in inverse form.

In his 1835 paper, Jacobi proved the following basic result classifying periodic (including elliptic)
functions: If a univariate single-valued function is multiply periodic, then such a function cannot have more than
two periods, and the ratio of the periods cannot be a real number. He discovered many of the fundamental
properties of theta functions, including the functional equation and the Jacobi triple product formula, as well as
many other results on q-series and hypergeometric series.

The solution of the Jacobi inversion problem for the hyperelliptic Abel map by Weierstrass in 1854
required the introduction of the hyperelliptic theta function and later the general Riemann theta function for
algebraic curves of arbitrary genus. The complex torus associated to a genus algebraic curve, obtained by
quotienting by the lattice of periods is referred to as the Jacobian variety. This method of inversion, and its
subsequent extension by Weierstrass and Riemann to arbitrary algebraic curves, may be seen as a higher genus
generalization of the relation between elliptic integrals and the Jacobi or Weierstrass elliptic functions.

Jacobi was the first to apply elliptic functions to number theory, for example proving of Fermat's two-
square theorem and Lagrange's four-square theorem, and similar results for 6 and 8 squares. His other work in
number theory continued the work of C. F. Gauss: new proofs of quadratic reciprocity and introduction of
the Jacobi symbol; contributions to higher reciprocity laws, investigations of continued fractions, and the
invention of Jacobi sums.
 He was also one of the early founders of the theory of determinants; in particular, he invented
the Jacobian determinant formed from the n² differential coefficients of n given functions of n independent
variables, and which has played an important part in many analytical investigations. In 1841 he reintroduced
the partial derivative ∂ notation of Legendre, which was to become standard.

Students of vector fields and Lie theory often encounter the Jacobi identity, the analog of associativity
for the Lie bracket operation.

Planetary theory and other particular dynamical problems likewise occupied his attention from time to
time. While contributing to celestial mechanics, he introduced the Jacobi integral (1836) for a sidereal
coordinate system. His theory of the last multiplier is treated in Vorlesungen über Dynamik, edited by Alfred
Clebsch (1866).

He left many manuscripts, portions of which have been published at intervals in Crelle's Journal. His
other works include Commentatio de transformatione integralis duplicis indefiniti in formam
simpliciorem (1832), Canon arithmeticus (1839), and Opuscula mathematica (1846–1857). His Gesammelte
Werke (1881–1891) were published by the Berlin Academy.