LeonhardEuler大数学家欧拉个人传记.pdfVIP

Leonhard Euler Born: 15 April 1707 in Basel, Switzerland Died: 18 Sept 1783 in St Petersburg, Russia Article by: J J OConnor and E F Robertson September 1998 Edited by XiaJingbo, mailto: xjb@ Leonhard Eulers father was Paul Euler. Paul Euler had studied theology at the University of Basel and had attended Jacob Bernoullis lectures there. In fact Paul Euler and Johann Bernoulli had both lived in Jacob Bernoullis house while undergraduates at Basel. Paul Euler became a Protestant minister and married Margaret Brucker, the daughter of another Protestant minister. Their son Leonhard Euler was born in Basel, but the family moved to Riehen when he was one year old and it was in Riehen, not far from Basel, that Leonard was brought up. Paul Euler had, as we have mentioned, some mathematical training and he was able to teach his son elementary mathematics along with other subjects. Leonhard was sent to school in Basel and during this time he lived with his grandmother on his mothers side. This school was a rather poor one, by all accounts, and Euler learnt no mathematics at all from the school. However his interest in mathematics had certainly been sparked by his fathers teaching, and he read mathematics texts on his own and took some private lessons. Eulers father wanted his son to follow him into the church and sent him to the University of Basel to prepare for the ministry. He entered the University in 1720, at the age of 14, first to obtain a general education before going on to more advanced studies. Johann Bernoulli soon discovered Eulers great potential for mathematics in private tuition that Euler himself engineered. Eulers own account given in his unpublished autobiographical writings, see [1], is as follows:- ... I soon found an opportunity to be introduced to a famous professor Johann Bernoulli. ... True, he was very busy and so refused flatly to give me private lessons; but he gave me much more