Swiss mathematician honoured by Google

The internet search engine published an interactive “Google doodle” to honour a man regarded as the most influential mathematician of the 18th century.

Euler is credited with introducing much of the terminology and notation of modern mathematics.

He is also noted for his discoveries in such fields as infinitesimal calculus and graph theory and for his work in diverse others areas, such as mechanics, fluid dynamics, optics and astronomy.

Although raised in Switzerland, he spent most of adult life in St. Petersburg, Russia and in Berlin.

A genius by any standard, he enrolled at the university of Basel at the age of 13 and graduated with a master of philosophy three years later after penning a thesis comparing the philosophies of Descartes and Newton.

He died in Russia in 1783.

Portrait of Leonhard Euler by Johann Georg Brucker (1756). Image: Wikimedia Commons