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Leonhard Euler was born at Bâle on April 15, 1707, and died at St. Petersburg on September 7, 1783. he was the son of a Lutheran minister who had settled at Bâle, and was educated in his native town under the direction of John Bernoulli, with whose sons Daniel and Nicholas he formed a lifelong friendship. When, in 1725, the younger Bernoullis went to Russia, on the invitation of the empress, they procured a place there for Euler, which in 1733 he exchanged for the chair of mathematics, then vacated by Daniel Bernoulli. The severity of the climate affected his eyesight, and in 1735 he lost the use of one eye completely. In 1741 he moved to Berlin at the request, or rather command, of Frederick the Great; here he stayed till 1766, when he returned to Russia, and was succeeded at Berlin by Lagrange. Within two or three years of his going back to St. Petersburg he became blind; but in spite of this, and although his house, together with many of his papers, were burnt in 1771, he recast and improved most of his earlier works. He died of apoplexy in 1783. He was married twice.
Euler wrote an immense number of memoirs on all kinds of mathematical subjects. His chief works included many of the results of earlier memoirs. First, he wrote in 1748 his Introductio in Analysin Infinitorum, which was intended to serve as an introduction to pure analytical mathematics. This is divided into two parts. The Analysis Infinitorum was followed in 1755 by the Institutiones Calculi Differentialis, to which it was intended as an introduction. This is the first text-book on the differential calculus which has any claim to be regarded as complete, and it may be said that until recently many modern treatises on the subject are based on it; at the same time it should be added that the exposition of the principles of the subject is often prolix and obscure, and sometimes not altogether accurate.
This series of works was completed by the publication in three volumes in 1768 to 1770 of the Institutiones Calculi Integralis, in which the results of several of Euler's earlier memoirs on the same subject and on differential equations are included. This, like the similar treatise on the differential calculus, summed up what was then known on the subject, but many of the theorems were recast and the proofs improved. The Beta and Gamma functions were invented by Euler and are discussed here, but only as illustrations of methods of reduction and integration. His treatment of elliptic integrals is superficial; it was suggested by a theorem, given by John Landen in the Philosophical Transactions for 1775, connecting the arcs of a hyperbola and an ellipse. Euler's works that form this trilogy have gone through numerous subsequent editions.
The classic problems on isoperimetrical curves, the brachistochrone in a resisting medium, and the theory of geodesics (all of which had been suggested by his master, John Bernoulli) had engaged Euler's attention at an early date; and in solving them he was led to the calculus of variations. The general idea of this was laid down in his Curvarum Maximi Minimive Proprietate Gaudentium Inventio Nova ac Facilis, published in 1744, but the complete development of the new calculus was first effected by Lagrange in 1759. The method used by Lagrange is described in Euler's integral calculus, and is the same as that given in most modern text-books on the subject.
In 1770 Euler published his Anleitung zur Algebra in two volumes. A French translation, with numerous and valuable additions by Lagrange, was brought out in 1794; and a treatise on arithmetic by Euler was appended to it. The first volume treats of determinate algebra. This contains one of the earliest attempts to place the fundamental processes on a scientific basis: the same subject had attracted D'Alembert's attention. This work also includes the proof of the binomial theorem for an unrestricted real index which is still known by Euler's name; the proof is founded on the principle of the permanence of equivalent forms, but Euler made no attempt to investigate the convergency of the series: that he should have omitted this essential step is the more curious as he had himself recognized the necessity of considering the convergency of infinite series: Vandermonde's proof given in 1764 suffers from the same defect.
At the time of his death he was engaged in writing a treatise on hydromechanics in which the treatment of the subject would have been completely recast.
His most important works on astronomy are his Theoria Motuum Planetarum et Cometarum, published in 1744; his Theoria Motus Lunaris, published in 1753; and his Theoria Motuum Lunae, published in 1772. In these he attacked the problem of three bodies: he supposed the body considered (ex. gr. the moon) to carry three rectangular axes with it in its motion, the axes moving parallel to themselves, and to these axes all the motions were referred. This method is not convenient, but it was from Euler's results that Mayer constructed the lunar tables for which his widow in 1770 received 5000 pounds from the English parliament, and in recognition of Euler's services a sum of 300 pounds was also voted as an honorarium to him.
Euler was much interested in optics. In 1746 he discussed the relative merits of the emission and undulatory theories of light; he on the whole preferred the latter. In 1770--71 he published his optical researches in three volumes under the title Dioptrica.
He also wrote and elementary work on physics and the fundamental principles of mathematical philosophy. This originated from an invitation he received when he first went to Berlin to give lessons on physics to the princess of Anhalt-Dessau. These lectures were published in 1768--1772 in three volumes under the title Lettres ... sur quelques sujets de physique ..., and for half a century remained a standard treatise on the subject.
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