Google doodle honors Leonhard Euler on his 306th birthday

Google doodle honors Leonhard Euler on his 306th birthday

The mathematician introduced most modern terminology and was renowned for his work in mechanics, optics and astronomy

Euler was born in Basel on 15 April 1707. He was tutored by Johann Bernoulli, a family friend who was also Europe's leading mathematician. When Euler's father tried to make him become a pastor, Bernoulli persuaded him that his son had the potential to be a great mathematician.

Leonhard Euler was a pioneering Swiss mathematician and physicist. He made important discoveries in fields as diverse as infinitesimal calculus and graph theory.


Euler is also credited with using closed curves to illustrate syllogistic reasoning (1768). These diagrams have become known as Euler diagrams.

Personal philosophy and religious beliefs

Euler and his friend Daniel Bernoulli were opponents of Leibniz's monadism and the philosophy of Christian Wolff. Euler insisted that knowledge is founded in part on the basis of precise quantitative laws, something that monadism and Wolffian science were unable to provide. Euler's religious leanings might also have had a bearing on his dislike of the doctrine; he went so far as to label Wolff's ideas as "heathen and atheistic"