SUCCESSORS OF NEWTON IN ASTRONOMY 



became famous as an historian as well as an as- 

 tronomer. 



LEONARD EULER 



Still another contemporary of D'Alembert and Del- 

 ambre, and somewhat older than either of them, was 

 Leonard Euler (1707-1783), of Basel, whose fame as a 

 philosopher equals that of either of the great French- 

 men. He is of particular interest here in his capacity 

 of astronomer, but astronomy was only one of the 

 many fields of science in which he shone. Surely some- 

 thing out of the ordinary was to be expected of the 

 man who could "repeat the ALneid of Virgil from the 

 beginning to the end without hesitation, and indicate 

 the first and last line of every page of the edition which 

 he used." Something was expected, and he fulfilled 

 these expectations. 



In early life he devoted himself to the st dy of 

 theology and the Oriental languages, at the request of 

 his father, but his love of mathematics proved too 

 strong, and, with his father's consent, he finally gave 

 up his classical studies and turned to his favorite 

 study, geometry. In 1727 he was invited by Cath- 

 arine I. to reside in St. Petersburg, and on accepting 

 this invitation he was made an associate of the Acade- 

 my of Sciences. A little later he was made professor 

 of physics, and in 1733 professor of mathematics. In 

 1735 he solved a problem in three days which some 

 of the eminent mathematicians would not undertake 

 und -.-il months. In 1741 Frederick the ( 



invited him to Berlin, where he soon became a mcml >er 

 of the Academy of Sciences and professor of mathe- 



'7 



