Contributions To Mathematics and Physics
|
Euler worked in almost all areas of mathematics: geometry, infinitesimal calculus, trigonometry, algebra, and number theory, as well as continuum physics, lunar theory and other areas of physics. He is a seminal figure in the history of mathematics; if printed, his works, many of which are of fundamental interest, would occupy between 60 and 80 quarto volumes. Euler's name is associated with a large number of topics.
Euler is the only mathematician to have two numbers named after him: the immensely important Euler's Number in calculus, e, approximately equal to 2.71828, and the Euler-Mascheroni Constant γ (gamma) sometimes referred to as just "Euler's constant", approximately equal to 0.57721. It is not known whether γ is rational or irrational.
Read more about this topic: Leonhard Euler
Famous quotes containing the words contributions to, mathematics and/or physics:
“The vast material displacements the machine has made in our physical environment are perhaps in the long run less important than its spiritual contributions to our culture.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“The three main medieval points of view regarding universals are designated by historians as realism, conceptualism, and nominalism. Essentially these same three doctrines reappear in twentieth-century surveys of the philosophy of mathematics under the new names logicism, intuitionism, and formalism.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“Now the twitching stops. Now you are still. We are through with physiology and theology, physics begins.”
—Alfred Döblin (1878–1957)