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Leonhard euler biography

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by Alberto Martinez

It is well known that you cannot divide a number by zero. Math teachers write, for example, 24 ÷ 0 = undefined. They use analogies to convince students that it is impossible and meaningless, that “you cannot divide something by nothing.” Yet we also learn that we can multiply by zero, add zero, and subtract zero.  And some teachers explain that zero is not really nothing, that it is just a number with definite and distinct properties. So, why not divide by zero? In the past, many mathematicians did.

In 628 CE, the Indian mathematician and astronomer Brahmagupta claimed that “zero divided by a zero is zero.” At around 850 CE, another Indian mathematician, Mahavira, more explicitly argued that any number divided by zero leaves that number unchanged, so then, for example, 24 ÷ 0 = 24. Later, around 1150, the mathematician Bhaskara gave yet another result for such operations. He argued that a quantity divided by zero becomes an infinite quantity. This idea persisted for centuries, for example, in 1656, the English mathematician John Wallis likewis

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Leonhard Euler

Swiss mathematician (1707–1783)

"Euler" redirects here. For other uses, see Euler (disambiguation).

Leonhard Euler (OY-lər;[b]German:[ˈleːɔnhaʁtˈʔɔʏlɐ]ⓘ, Swiss Standard German:[ˈleɔnhardˈɔʏlər]; 15 April 1707 – 18 September 1783) was a Swisspolymath who was active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, logician, geographer, and engineer. He founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made influential discoveries in many other branches of mathematics, such as analytic number theory, complex analysis, and infinitesimal calculus. He also introduced much of modern mathematical terminology and notation, including the notion of a mathematical function. He is known for his work in mechanics, fluid dynamics, optics, astronomy, and music theory.[7] Euler has been called a "universal genius" who "was fully equipped with almost unlimited powers of imagination, intellectual gifts and extraordinary memory".[8] He spent most of his adult life in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and in Berlin, then the c

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Euclid of Alexandria

Euclid of Alexandria is the most prominent mathematician of antiquity best known for his treatise on mathematics The Elements. The long lasting nature of The Elements must make Euclid the leading mathematics teacher of all time. However little is known of Euclid's life except that he taught at Alexandria in Egypt. Proclus, the last major Greek philosopher, who lived around 450 AD wrote (see [1] or [9] or many other sources):-
Not much younger than these [pupils of Plato] is Euclid, who put together the "Elements", arranging in order many of Eudoxus's theorems, perfecting many of Theaetetus's, and also bringing to irrefutable demonstration the things which had been only loosely proved by his predecessors. This man lived in the time of the first Ptolemy; for Archimedes, who followed closely upon the first Ptolemy makes mention of Euclid, and further they say that Ptolemy once asked him if there were a shorted way to study geometry than the Elements, to which he replied that there was no royal road to geometry. He is therefore younger than Plato's circle,

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