fbpx

KidsKonnect

Leonhard Euler Facts & Worksheets

Leonhard Euler was a Swiss mathematician and physicist who contributed to the understanding of geometry, calculus, mechanics, and number theory.

Search for Worksheets

Worksheets /People /Leonhard Euler Facts & Worksheets

Facts & Worksheets

Premium
Leonhard Euler Worksheets
Not ready to purchase a subscription? Click to download the free sample version   Download sample

Leonhard Euler was a Swiss mathematician and physicist who contributed to the understanding of geometry, calculus, mechanics, and number theory. One of the founders of pure mathematics, Euler also developed approaches for solving problems in observational astronomy.

See the fact file below for more information on the Leonhard Euler or alternatively, you can download our 24-page Leonhard Euler worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

EARLY LIFE AND FAMILY

  • Born on April 15, 1707 in Basel, Switzerland, Leonhard Euler was the eldest of four children. His younger siblings were Anna Maria, Maria Magdalena, and Johann Heinrich.
  • His father, Paul III Euler, was a pastor of the Reformed Church, and his mother, Marguerite Bucker, was a pastor’s daughter.
  • When Leonhard was one year old, his family moved to Riehen, a town about 5 miles (7 km) from Basel which is near to Switzerland’s borders with France and Germany.
  • The Eulers were a friend of the Bernoullis; Johann Bernoulli eventually became the most significant influence on young Leonhard.

EDUCATION

  • Leonhard was sent back to Basel for formal education; he lived with his maternal grandmother.
  • When he was 13, he started studying at the University of Basel.
  • Three years later, Euler completed his Master’s degree in philosophy, having analyzed and contradicted the ideas of Descartes and Newton.
  • That same year, he took up theology to fulfill his father’s wishes.
  • Although he was a devout Christian, he could not find a passion for the study of theology, Greek and Hebrew, unlike his love for mathematics.
  • Johann Bernoulli persuaded Leonhard’s father to allow his son to change career because of his remarkable aptitude for mathematics.
  • In 1726, Euler finished his dissertation on the propagation of sound, entitled De Sono. At that time, he was also tried to achieve a position at the University of Basel, but failed.
  • In 1727, he joined the Paris Academy Prize Problem competition, where he was asked to find the best route to place the masts on a ship.
  • He won second place; Pierre Bouguer, known as the “father of naval architecture”, won first prize. Eventually, Euler won this yearly prize twelve times.

MARRIAGE

  • On January 7, 1734, he married Katharina Gsell, daughter of painter Georg Gsell. Only five of their thirteen children survived childhood.
  • In 1771, his house in St. Petersburg burned down, and he lost his wife after four decades of marriage.
  • Three years after Katharina’s death, Euler married Salome Abigail Gsell, her half-sister.
  • Their marriage lasted until his death in 1783.

CAREER BEGINNINGS

  • When Nicolaus Bernoulli died of appendicitis, his brother Daniel recommended his friend Euler to fill the position at the Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg.
  • On May 17, 1727, he arrived in Saint Petersburg and got promoted from his junior post in the medical department to a position in the mathematics department of the academy.
  • He learned Russian while he settled in Saint Petersburg, and also worked as a medic in the Russian Navy.
  • In 1731, Euler became a professor of physics at the academy. Two years later, he succeeded Daniel as the head of the mathematics department after the latter went back to Basel.
  • Because of the chaos in Russia, he left Saint Petersburg and moved to Germany. Frederick the Great of Prussia offered him a post at the Berlin Academy.
  • During his 25-year stay in Berlin, Euler wrote over 380 articles, and published his two famous works: the Introductio in analysin infinitorum (1748) on function and Institutiones calculi differentialis (1755) on differential calculus.
  • In 1755, Euler was elected as a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
  • He also tutored Princess Friederike Charlotte of Brandenburg-Schwedt, and wrote over 200 letters to her in the early 1760s. These letters were compiled in a best-selling book entitled Letters of Euler on different Subjects in Natural Philosophy Addressed to a German Princess.
  • Despite Euler’s contribution to the Academy’s prestige, the Prussian king found his mathematical skills unsophisticated and expressed his disappointment with his practical engineering abilities.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO MATHEMATICS AND PHYSICS

  • Euler did outstanding work in almost all branches of mathematics, such as geometry, infinitesimal calculus, trigonometry, algebra, and number theory, and even the physical sciences.
  • He wrote over 800 papers and books in these fields. Clifford Truesdell, a physicist and historian of science, even vouched for him.
  • Euler’s first great discovery in mathematics was in 1735, when he solved the Basel Problem – finding the exact value of adding up the reciprocals of squared whole numbers to infinity. Each successive term in the series is less than the term before it; mathematicians already had an idea that the sum would result in a particular number, but none had been able to give the exact value. Euler solved the problem by proving that when the number of terms becomes infinite, the series converges to the ration of the square of pi and six.
  • In 1737, he published Mechanica, which included his own innovations in mathematical analysis. He defined analysis as the “mathematics of the infinite and the infinitesimal”. In this book, Euler also used analysis to feature Isaac Newton’s Principia, which he presented in a more mathematically refined and useful way.
  • Euler also continued to work on the laws of motion, where he formulated new laws applied to rigid bodies with true dimensions, made the principles of linear and angular momentum, and deduced conclusions on known differential equations of motion for rigid bodies, now referred as Newtonian equations.

REMAINING YEARS

  • In 1771, Euler went completely blind, but he was undaunted. He made use of his phenomenal memory and mathematical inventiveness to function, and even asked his mathematician son Johann to assist him and transcribe his words.
  • That same year, his home burned to the ground, which almost cost him his life. He was saved by a servant who carried him to safety.
  • Euler died from a brain hemorrhage at the age of 76, on September 18, 1783.
  • He was buried in the Smolensk Lutheran Cemetery in Dekabristov Island, beside his wife Katharina.

Leonhard Euler Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about Leonhard Euler across 24 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Leonhard Euler worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about Leonhard Euler who was a Swiss mathematician and physicist who contributed to the understanding of geometry, calculus, mechanics, and number theory. One of the founders of pure mathematics, Euler also developed approaches for solving problems in observational astronomy.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

  • Leonhard Euler Facts
  • Euler Who?
  • Fact Checkpoint
  • Life Timeline
  • Math or Physics?
  • Other Notable Veterans
  • Language of Mathematics
  • One Giant Graph Problem
  • Function World
  • Quote from Euler
  • Message to Euler

Link/cite this page

If you reference any of the content on this page on your own website, please use the code below to cite this page as the original source.

Link will appear as Leonhard Euler Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com - KidsKonnect, April 4, 2020

Use With Any Curriculum

These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.

Related Resources