A tribute to Euler

In a piece in The Wilson Quarterly, to celebrate the tercentenary of Euler, John Derbyshire pays his tributes to Euler; the piece begins with a couple of stanzas of verse:

Without the Bard of Basel, Bell,
You’ve clearly dropped the ­ball.
Our votes are cast for Euler, ­L.
Whose Opera says it ­all.

Six dozen ­volumes—­what a feat!
Profound and deep ­throughout.
Does Leonhard rank with the ­elite?
Of this there is no ­doubt.

It goes on to describe the life and works of Euler in detail:

There never was a mathematician as productive as Euler. Math writer W. W. Rouse Ball computed that from 1736, when Euler began publishing regularly, to his death from a stroke in 1783,

 

there is for each and every fortnight in 47 years a separate effort of mathematical invention, digested, arranged, written in Latin, and amplified, often to a tedious extent, by corollaries and scholia. Through all this mass, the power of the inventor is almost uniformly distributed, and apparently without effort. There is nothing like this, except this, in the history of ­science.

 

Though it seems almost impertinent to emphasize any of the man’s contributions above others, probably most mathematicians would agree that Euler’s work in analysis advanced mathematics the furthest. It is here that his single most memorable result belongs. The famous Euler equation e^iπ+1=0 manages to establish a correlation among five of the most important numbers (0, 1, i, e, and ­π—­the last three all owe their symbols to Euler!) as well as among three key operations (addition, multiplication, and exponentiation).

And, ends with this appraisal of the man behind the mathematician:

All accounts of Euler’s life suggest that he was an admirable man, generous not only to his family and friends but to his critics and rivals as well. When a dispute arose over precedence in what is now known as the ­Euler-­Maclaurin method for computing infinite sums, Euler wrote to a friend, “I have very little desire for anything to be detracted from the fame of the celebrated Mr. Maclaurin since he probably came upon the same theorem for summing series before me, and . . . deserves to be named as its first discoverer.”

That was Leonhard Euler: a mathematician of towering genius who lived nobly, calmly, cheerfully, and well. Perhaps his unassuming nature is one reason that the nonmathematical public does not better know his name. Let us hope this year’s tercentenary celebrations will put matters ­right.

Take a look!

Hat Tip: A&L Daily