Leonhard Euler 1707 - 1783
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Euler was without doubt one of the greatest mathematicians of all time
contributing something new to virtually every field of pure and applied mathematics
in his day. He also wrote on such diverse topics as music, optics, acoustics,
naval architecture, etc! Publication of his collected work in one compendium
(?stupendium!) of volumes has consumed almost the entire twentieth century
(undertaken by Swiss Academy of Science) and currently stands at more than
70 volumes of 500 large pages each! He produced an average of 800 pages of
new mathematics per year over a career that spanned six decades (reference:
Boyer, 1991; Dunham, 1994) When you add to this fact knowledge of the fact
that he was totally blind nearly tweny years before he died, and yet his output
did not slow or falter, his contribution can be seen to be in a word, extraordinary.
Swiss-born, served in Berlin Academy under Frederick the Great of Prussia, and also the St Petersburg Academy under Catherine the Great.
References
C. Boyer & Uta Merzbach, A History of Mathematics, 2nd Ed Wiley,
New York 1991 p440
W. Dunham, The Mathematical Universe. Wiley, New York, 1994, pp51-63