The two prize-problems proposed by the same Academy in 17 were designed to obtain a more perfect theory of the moon’s motion. In 1755, Leonhard Euler had been elected a foreign member of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and sometime afterwards the academical prize was adjudged to three of his memoirs Concerning the Inequalities in the Motions of the Planets. Theory however, is frequently unsoundly applied in it, and it is to be observed generally that Euler’s strength lay rather in pure than in applied mathematics. These letters were written at the request of the princess of Anhalt-Dessau, and contain an admirably clear exposition of the principal facts of mechanics, optics, acoustics, and physical astronomy. Petersburg was the preparation of his Lettres a une Princesse d’Allemagne sur divers subjects de Physique et de Philosophie, (3 vols. Leonhard Euler was one of the very few great mathematicians who did not deem it beneath the dignity of genius to give some attention to the recasting of elementary processes and the perfecting of elementary textbooks, and it is not improbable that modern mathematics is as greatly indebted to him for his work along this line as for his original creative work.Īnother task to which he set himself soon after returning to St. It was under these circumstances that he dictated to his amanuensis, a tailor’s apprentice who was absolutely devoid of mathematical knowledge, his Anleitung zur Algebra, or Elements of Algebra, 1770, a work which, though purely elementary displays the mathematical genius of its author, and is still considered one of the best works of its class. Petersburg a cataract formed in his left eye, which ultimately deprived him of sight, but this did not stop his wonderful literary productiveness, which continued for seventeen years until the day of his death. Petersburg, to which he had been originally called by Catherine II. In 1766, Leonhard Euler, with difficulty, obtained permission from the King of prussia to return to St. In his nineteenth year he also composed a dissertation in answer to a prize-question concerning the masting of ships, for which he received the second prize from the French Academy of Sciences. While he was eagerly engaged in physiological researches, he composed a dissertation on the nature and propagation of sound. Petersburg in 1725, he applied himself to the study of physiology, to which he made useful applications of his mathematical knowledge he also attended the lectures of the most eminent professors of Basel. At the same time, by the advice of the younger Bernoullis, who had removed to St. Having taken his degree as Master of Arts in 1723, Leonhard Euler afterwards applied himself at his father’s desire, to the study of theology and the Oriental languages, with the view of entering the ministry but, with his father’s consent, he returned to his favourite pursuit, the study of mathematics. His genius for analytical science soon gained for him a high place in the esteem of his instructor, John Bernoulli, who was at the time one of the first mathematicians of Europe.
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