Johann Albrecht Euler (27 November 1734 – 17 September 1800) was a Swiss-Russian

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, g ...

and

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

. Also known as ''Johann Albert Euler'' or ''John-Albert Euler'', he was the first child born to the great Swiss mathematician

Leonhard Euler Leonhard Euler ( , ; 15 April 170718 September 1783) was a Swiss mathematician, physicist, astronomer, geographer, logician and engineer who founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made pioneering and influential discoveries in ma ...

(1707–1783), who had emigrated

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to Saint-Petersburg on 17 May 1727. His mother was Katharina Gsell (1707–1773) whose maternal grandmother was the famous scientific illustrator

Maria Sibylla Merian Maria Sibylla Merian (2 April 164713 January 1717) was a German naturalist and scientific illustrator. She was one of the earliest European naturalists to observe insects directly. Merian was a descendant of the Frankfurt branch of the Swiss Mer ...

(1647–1717) and whose father was the

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painter Georg Gsell (1673–1740) who had emigrated to Russia in 1716. Katharina married Leonhard Euler on 7 January 1734 and Johann Albert would be the eldest of their 13 children (only 5 of whom survived childhood). In 1754 he became a member of the Berlin Academy. In 1758, he served briefly as director of the Astronomical Calculation Institute (ARI). On Euler's return to

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

in 1765, he was appointed as the chair of physics at the

St. Petersburg Academy The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...

. In St. Petersburg, he lived in his father's house; Johann Albrecht's family occupied the ground floor. He won a total of seven international academy prizes. In 1771, Euler was elected a foreign member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences ( sv, Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien) is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special ...

. In 1789, his youngest daughter married James Bernoulli "the younger" (1759–1789) who died two months after the wedding in a drowning accident.

Works

External links

J. A. Euler's math genealogyL. Euler's descendantsThe Eulers
1734 births 1800 deaths Scientists from Saint Petersburg People from Sankt-Peterburgsky Uyezd 18th-century Swiss mathematicians Members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences Full members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Russian people of Swiss descent 18th-century mathematicians from the Russian Empire {{mathematician-stub