15 April 1707 A.D. BASEL, SWITZERLAND: Birth of Leonard Euler—Calvinist, Mathematician & Mocked by Voltaire and Frederick the Great
15 April 1707 A.D. BASEL, SWITZERLAND: Birth of Leonard Euler—Calvinist, Mathematician & Mocked by Voltaire and Frederick the Great Graves, Dan. “Mathematician-Apologist Leonard Euler.” Christianity.com. May 2007. http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1701-1800/mathematician-apologist-leonhard-euler-11630191.html . Accessed 14 Apr 2015. Voltaire and Frederick the Great mocked him; Catherine the Great of Russia employed him; Mathematicians revere him. His name was Leonhard Euler. The son of a Protestant minister, Euler was born on this day, April 15, 1707, in Basel, Switzerland. Euler showed early promise in math, a promise that was amply fulfilled. Gathered together, his works fill sixty encyclopedia-size volumes! He was a founder of analysis and made major advances in arithmetic, geometry, trigonometry and calculus. His symbols are used to this day. The Euler constant, Euler numbers, Eulerian integrals and other mathematical forms are named for hi...