Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) was arguably the greatest mathematician of the

eighteenth century (His closest competitor for that title is Lagrange) and one of the
most prolific of all time; his publication list of 886 papers and books may be
exceeded only by Paul Erds. Euler's complete works fill about 90 volumes.
Remarkably, much of this output dates from the the last two decades of his life,
when he was totally blind.
Euler's important contributions were so numerous that terms like "Euler's formula"
or "Euler's theorem" can mean many different things depending on context. Just in
mechanics, one has Euler angles (to specify the orientation of a rigid body), Euler's
theorem (that every rotation has an axis), Euler's equations for motion of fluids,
and the Euler-Lagrange equation (that comes from calculus of variations). The
"Euler's formula" with which most American calculus students are familiar defines
the exponentials of imaginary numbers in terms of trigonometric functions. But
there is another "Euler's formula" that (to use the modern terminology adopted long
after Euler's death) gives the values of the Riemann zeta function at positive even
integers in terms of Bernoulli numbers. There are both Euler numbers and Eulerian
numbers, and they aren't the same thing. Euler's study of the bridges of Knigsberg
can be seen as the beginning of combinatorial topology (which is why the Euler
characteristic bears his name).
Though born and educated in Basel, Switzerland, Euler spent most of his career in
St. Petersburg and Berlin. He joined the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in
1727. In 1741 he went to Berlin at the invitation of Frederick the Great, but he and
Frederick never got on well and in 1766 he returned to St. Petersburg, where he
remained until his death. Euler's prolific output caused a tremendous problem of
backlog: the St. Petersburg Academy continued publishing his work posthumously
for more than 30 years. Euler married twice and had 13 children, though all but
five of them died young.
Euler's powers of memory and concentration were legendary. He could recite the
entire Aeneid word-for-word. He was not troubled by interruptions or distractions;
in fact, he did much of his work with his young children playing at his feet. He was
able to do prodigious calculations in his head, a necessity after he went blind. The
contemporary French mathematician Condorcet tells the story of two of Euler's
students who had independently summed seventeen terms of a complicated infinite
series, only to disagree in the fiftieth decimal place; Euler settled the dispute by
recomputing the sum in his head.

Some mathematicians consider the German mathematician Gauss to be the

greatest of all time, and almost all consider him to be one of the three greatest,
along with Archimedes and Newton; in contrast, he is hardly known to the
general public. He was extremely precocious as a child, but did not decide to
become a mathematician until the age of seventeen, when he solved the
problem of constructing the regular 17-gon, a problem that had been unsolved
for almost 2000 years. Characteristically, he did not just solve the geometry
problem, but rather provided deep mathematical insights and initiated a new
area of study that combined geometry, analysis and number theory; in the
same manner, when he was asked to supervise the geodetic survey of Hanover,
he solved the computational problems that arose by founding the study of the
intrinsic differential geometry of curved surfaces, which was to be
fundamental to Riemannian geometry and Einstein's theory of relativity.
Ultimately, he was to make major contributions to almost every area of
mathematics.
Within mathematics, number theory was Gauss' first and greatest love; he
called it the `Queen of Mathematics' (he has been called the `Prince of
Mathematicians'). His first published work was the book Disquisitiones
Arithmeticae published in 1801; it consisted almost wholly of original work
and marked the beginning of modern number theory. In addition to
introducing new ideas and concepts to number theory,
the Disquisitiones helped create the modern rigorous approach to
mathematics; he wanted the proofs in his writing to be above reproach. He
wrote to a friend, `I mean the word proof not in the sense of lawyers, who set
two half proofs equal to a whole one, but in the sense of mathematicians,
where proof = 0, and it is demanded for proof that every doubt becomes
impossible'.
Gauss was the first mathematician to be comfortable with the use of complex
numbers and the geometry of the complex plane; he used them both in pure
(e.g. number theory) and applied (e.g. electromagnetism) mathematics. He
was the first to give a proof of the fundamental theorem of algebra that every
polynomial with real or complex coefficients has at least one root; he gave four
different proofs during his life. Stamp No. 1246 pictures the complex plane in
honor of the bicentennial of his birth. Germany has also honored Gauss with a
coin, and his portrait is on the German 10 Mark note.

In publishing his work, Gauss followed the motto Pauca sed matura (Few, but
ripe) which appeared on his seal. Gauss would not publish a result until it was
complete and he was entirely satisfied with its presentation; consequently,
much of his work was unpublished with a considerable amount discovered
only after his death. Gauss' writing style was terse, polished, and devoid of
motivation. Abel said, `He is like the fox, who effaces his tracks in the sand
with his tail'. Gauss, in defense of his style, said, `no self-respecting architect
leaves the scaffolding in place after completing the building'. The quantity and
depth of Gauss' unpublished work sometimes led to unpleasant consequences.
When Gauss' lifelong friend Farkas Bolyai wrote to Gauss for an opinion on
his son Janos's work on non-Euclidean geometry, Gauss wrote that it was fine
work, but he could not praise it, for this would be self-praise since he had
developed a similar theory years before; Janos was crestfallen and gave up
mathematics as a career. Today Gauss, Bolyai, and Lobachevsky are
considered co-discoverers of non-Euclidean geometry. A similar incident
occurred with Jacobi over the theory of elliptic functions; Gauss also had
prediscovered work of Abel and Cauchy, including Cauchy's integral theorem.
Gauss could be a stern, demanding individual, and it is reported that this
resulted in friction with two of his sons that caused them to leave Germany
and come to the United States; they settled in the midwest and have
descendants throughout the plains states. I was living in Greeley, Colorado,
when I read this in 1972; looking in the phone book, I found a listing for a
Charlotte Gauss living two blocks from my apartment! After considerable
internal debate, I called her and found that she was indeed related to Gauss.
My wife, Paulette, and I visited several times with Charlotte and her sister
Helen; they were bright, alert, and charming young women, ages 93 and 94,
respectively. Their father, Gauss' grandson, had been a Methodist missionary
to the region, and he had felt it unseemly to take pride in his famous ancestor
(maybe there were some remnants of his father's feelings on leaving
Germany); they were nevertheless happy to talk Gauss and their family. They
showed us a baby spoon which their father had made out of a gold medal
awarded to Gauss, some family papers, and a short biography of Gauss
written by an aunt. I vividly remember Helen describing the reaction of one of
her math teachers when he discovered he had a real, live, Gauss in his class.

| Life | Work | Mathematics | Bibliography | Back to the front page

Georg Friedrich Bernhard Rieman - Life

Milena Hering
Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann was born in Breselenz, Germany, on September 17th
1826. He was the second of 6 children of a Protestant minister and received his elementary
education from his father, later assisted by a local teacher. At Easter in 1840 he moved to
Hannover, where he stayed with his grandmother to visit the Lyceum. When his grandmother
died two years later, he went to the Johanneum in Lueneburg. Because he was interested in
mathematical matters beyond school, the director, Mr. Schmalfuss, encouraged him to do
mathematics through lending him books about mathematics, which he would bring back a
few days later to discuss them. Probably Euler and Legendres ``Thorie des Nombres" were
among them.
In spring term 1846 he enrolled in the University of Gttingen, where he started studying
theology and philology. But he always attended classes in mathematics, too, and finally his
father gave him permission to do only mathematics. In this time, mathematical education in
Gttingen was quite poor, even Gauss only taught elementary classes in applied mathematics
and so Riemann moved to Berlin in spring 1847. There were Jacobi, Steiner and Dirichlet,
who would have great influence on him.
In spring 1849 he returned to Gttingen, where the situation had changed due to the return of
W.Weber. He took courses in physics, philosophy and education. In 1851 he wrote his thesis
on complex function theory and Riemann surfaces and got his Ph.D. on December 16th.
The following two years he worked on his Habilitationsschrift about Fourier series. Of the
three possible subjects for the Habilitationsvortrag, Gauss choose surprisingly the last:
``ber die Hypothesen, die der Geometrie zugrundeliegen", because he was curious how
such a young man could handle a theme like that. A letter to his brother shows, that this had
been the only theme, which he had not prepared properly and though he had handed in his
thesis in December, the lecture took place only on June 10th 1854 and a quote of Dedekind
describes the reaction of Gauss:
[Gauss sat at the lecture], which surpassed all his expectaions, in the greatest astonishment,
and on the way back from the faculty meeting he spoke to Wilhelm Weber, with the greatest
appreciation, and with an excitement rare for him, about the depth of the ideas presented by
Riemann. [Werke, p.517, translated in Spivak, p.4A-3]
At this time Riemann worked as an assistant to H.Weber and held his first course
as Privatdozent in partial differential equations with applications to physics. He was very shy
and in his letters he reflects his difficulties to give a lecture. He was used to thinking in great
steps and it was difficult for him to accomodate to the speed of his auditorium. In 1855/56 he
taught his theory about abelian functions, where Dedekind, Bjerkness and Schering were his
Auditorium.
Riemann could not be made an extraordinary professor and so he got a stipend of the
government. The chair of Gauss went to Dirichlet, when Gauss died in 1855. In 1857 he
became an extraordinary professor and finally in 1859 he became a full professor after the
death of Dirichlet. When his brother died in 1857 he took care of his three sisters.

On 3rd June 1862 he married Elise Koch of Krchov, and they had a daughter. But in June
1862 he suffered a attack of pleuritis from which he never really recovered. He spent his last
years in Italy and Goettingen. He found financial support to stay in Italy, where he visited
Italian mathematicians, for example Betti, who he had met in Gttingen. In June 1866 he
made his last trip to the Lago Maggiore, where he died fully conscious in 20st July and left a
paper on natural philosophy unfinished.
He was member of the Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, the Bavarian and Parisian Academy
and the London Royal Academy. [Mathematische Werke, p 509-526] Euclid is one of the

world's most famous mathematicians, yet very little is known of his life, except
that he taught at Ptolemys university at Alexandria, Egypt. Euclid's Elements, a
work on elementary geometry and other topics, exceeded other works of its time,
which are now known only by indirect reference. The Elements begins with
definitions, postulates, and axioms, including the famous fifth, or parallel,
postulate that one and only one line can be drawn through a point parallel to a
given line. Euclid's decision to make this postulate not demonstrable assumption
led to Euclidean geometry. It was not until the 19th century that the fifth postulate
was modified in order to develop non-Euclidean geometry.
The Elements are divided into 13 books. The first 6 are on geometry; 7, 8 and 9 are
on number theory; and book number 10 is on Eudoxus's theory of irrational
numbers. Books 11, 12, and 13 all concern solid geometry, and end with a
discussion of the properties of the five regular polyhedrons and proof that there can
only be these five. Euclid's Elements are remarkable for the clarity with which the
theorems and problems are selected and ordered. The propositions proceed
logically and concisely, with very few assumptions.

Euclid is not known to have made any original discoveries, and the Elements is
based on the work of the people before him, like Exodus, Thales, Hippocrates, and
Pythagoras. It is accepted that some of the proofs are his own and that the excellent
arrangement is his. Over a thousand editions of the work have been published since
the first printed version of 1482. Euclid's other works include Data, On Divisions

of Figures, Phaenomena, Optics, Surface Loci, Porisms, Conics, Book of

Fallacies, and Elements of Music. Only the first four of these have survived.
Rene Descartes was a highly influential French philosopher, mathematician, scientist, and writer. He
has been dubbed the "Father of Modern Philosophy," and much of subsequent Western philosophy is
a response to his writings which continue to be studied closely to this day. In particular, his
Meditations continues to be a standard text at most university philosophy departments. Descartes'
influence in mathematics is also apparent, the Cartesian coordinate system allowing geometric
shapes to be expressed in algebraic equations being named for him. Descartes was also one of the
key figures in the Scientific Revolution.
Descartes frequently sets his views apart from those of his predecessors. In the opening section of
the Passions of the Soul, a treatise on the Early Modern version of what are now commonly called
emotions, he goes so far as to assert that he will write on his topic "as if no one had written on these
matters before". Many elements of his philosophy have precedents in late Aristotelianism, the revived
Stoicism of the 16th century, or in earlier philosophers like St. Augustine. In his natural philosophy, he
differs from the Schools on two major points: First, he rejects the analysis of corporeal substance into
matter and form; second, he rejects any appeal to ends divine or natural in explaining natural
phenomena. In his theology, he insists on the absolute freedom of Gods act of creation.
Descartes was a major figure in 17th century continental rationalism, later advocated by Baruch
Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz, and opposed by the empiricist school of thought consisting of Hobbes,
Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Leibniz, Spinoza and Descartes were all well versed in mathematics as
well as philosophy, and Descartes and Leibniz contributed greatly to science as well. As the inventor
of the Cartesian coordinate system, Descartes founded analytic geometry, the bridge between algebra
and geometry, crucial to the invention of calculus and analysis. Descartes' reflections on mind and
mechanism began the strain of Western thought that much later, impelled by the invention of the
electronic computer and by the possibility of machine intelligence, blossomed into the Turing test and
related thought. His most famous statement is: Cogito ergo sum (French: Je pense, donc je suis;
English: I think, therefore I am; OR I am thinking, therefore I exist), found in 7 of part I of Principles of
Philosophy (Latin) and in part IV of Discourse on the Method (French).