Google honors the famous mathematician and physicist Leonard Euler with today's doodle.
Leonhard Euler (,1707 – September 18, 1783) was a pioneering Swiss mathematician and physicist. He is credited, among other things, with introducing the symbol f(x) for functions.
He was born in Basel , Switzerland on 15 April 1707, the son of a priest. He studied geometry at the University of Basel. At the age of 20, he went to Saint Petersburg, Russia, where he worked on the organization of the Academy of Sciences, at the invitation of Empress Catherine I.He was appointed Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Saint Petersburg. In 1744, Frederick II of Prussia invited him to Berlin to take over as director of the mathematics department of the Academy there. The speech he gave to the French atheist philosopher Denis Diderot is characteristic, when the Tsarina of Russia Catherine the Great had invited Euler to her Court, in an attempt to stop Diderot's blabbering. The Swiss said to the Frenchman: "Sir, ( a + b ) / n = x, therefore God exists. Answer!" Thus, Diderot left defeated.
For the last 17 years of his life, the famous mathematician was almost blind. However, this did not prevent him from working. His amazing memory, combined with his mental clarity, were enough for him to perform his calculations orally, which he dictated to his secretary. In fact, during the period of his blindness, he produced half of his total work.
He died on September 18, 1783. The mathematician and philosopher De Condorcet said at the funeral: "Euler has ceased to live and to calculate," as Wikipedia reports.
