Mathematician Leonhard Euler Honored With Google Doodle - PC Magazine

April 15, 2013 10:18am EST VIEW ALL PHOTOS IN GALLERY Google today is celebrating the 306th birthday of mathematician Leonhard Euhler with a homepage doodle. The search giant transformed Google.com into a piece of scrap paper, with math and geometry doodles scattered around the company's logo. "[Euhler] not only made decisive and formative contributions to the subjects of geometry, calculus, mechanics, and number theory but also developed methods for solving problems in observational astronomy and demonstrated useful applications of mathematics in technology and public affairs," according to his Britannica biography. Euhler was born in 1707 in Switzerland, the son of Calvinist preacher. Though he dabbled in theology at his father's behest, Euhler eventually settled on his true love, geometry. His talent caught the attention of Johann Bernoulli, one of Europe's first mathematicians. By 1727, Euhler re-located to St. Petersburg to join the city's Academy of Sciences. Several years later, Euhler succeeded Daniel Bernoulli to the chair of mathematics. Euhler worked so hard that he lost sight in one eye by 1735. Undeterred, he became a member of the Berlin Academy at the invitation of Frederick the Great in 1741. There, he published numerous works for more than two decades. Euhler returned to Russia in 1766, but he developed a cataract on his other eye and eventually went blind. His sharp memory, however, enabled him to continue working. "One of the feats of his blind years was to perform all the elaborate calculations in his head for his second theory of lunar motion in 1772," according to Britannica. For more of Google's doodles, see the slideshow below. Recently, the search giant has honored Hitchhiker's Guide author Douglas Adams, African singer and activist Miriam Makeba, Nicolaus Copernicus, ferris wheel creator George Ferris, and baseball legend Jackie Robinson. VIEW ALL PHOTOS IN GALLERY via Technology - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNF8-vEoMMShMYcnkZPjo0HW24A9Fg&url=http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2417764,00.asp

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