Commemorative activities in leonhard euler

In world history, it is rare for a great scientist to be born in a small country. Euler, a Swiss mathematician, is one of the best. Although he has lived in two distant foreign cities since his adulthood: Petersburg and Berlin, his portrait has appeared on Swiss francs, and together with Newton on the pound, he has become the only two scientists still circulating on European paper money. 1On April 5, 707, Euler was born in Basel, northwest Switzerland, near France and Germany. The population of this French-speaking city is less than 200,000, but it has the earliest Swiss university-university of basel (1460), and the Rhine River winds through its center. Nietzsche, a German philosopher, was a professor of classical linguistics in university of basel for ten years when he was young, where he finished his masterpiece The Birth of Tragedy and became close friends with Wagner, a musician who spent his later years in the suburbs.

Switzerland is the birthplace of Euler and the place where he studied and lived. In order to commemorate Euler's mathematical contribution and its influence on world science, Switzerland issued a set of stamps to commemorate Euler's 250th birthday in 1957, and issued a new commemorative stamp to commemorate Euler's 300th birthday in 2007.

1740, Queen Anna abdicated and died in the same year, so Euler accepted the invitation of King frederick the great of Prussia and became the head of the Department of Mathematics of Berlin Academy of Sciences. Euler didn't get along well with the king of Prussia, because the king liked flattering ministers. Frederick the great supported mathematics only because he felt it was a responsibility, but he hated this subject from the bottom of his heart, because his own mathematics was very poor. In this respect, he could not compare with the French emperor Napoleon. He claimed to be a geometer and was friends with all the Parisian mathematicians of his time. Even if D'Alembert told the King of Prussia very frankly, it would be wrong to put any other mathematician above Euler. Unfortunately, the conceited king's view of Euler has not changed, but has intensified, making Euler even more unbearable. For the sake of her children's future, Euler had to pack her bags, leave Berlin where she had lived for 25 years, and return to the cold Petersburg again, with her wife and grandson.

After Euler returned to Petersburg, the Queen received him in a royal way, gave him a big house and a full set of furniture for the whole family to live in, and sent a chef of her own. The king of Prussia was so angry that he had to write to the French mathematician Lagrange, "The greatest king in Europe wants the greatest mathematician in Europe in his palace." Obviously, he was deeply worried about Euler's departure.

In memory of Euler who once lived in Germany, Germany issued commemorative stamps in 1950, 1957 and 1983. 1950, a set of stamps commemorating the 250th anniversary of the founding of the Berlin Academy of Sciences includes a stamp with Euler's head painted on it. The tickets for the famous scientist series from 65438 to 0957 also have Euler's head. The commemorative stamp issued by 1983 is to commemorate the bicentennial of Euler's birth. To celebrate the 300th anniversary of Euler's birth, the Swiss government, the China Academy of Sciences and the Ministry of Education of China jointly held a commemorative event at the Documentation and Information Center of the China Academy of Sciences on the afternoon of April 23rd, 2007, reviewing Euler's life, work and influence on modern life. Charles Kleiber, Swiss Secretary of State for Education and Research, said in his opening speech: "Today, we are here to commemorate one of the greatest scholars in modern history. Without Euler's many scientific discoveries, our life today would be completely different. "

Guo Huadong, Deputy Secretary-General of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xu Yongji, Assistant Director of the Department of International Cooperation of the Ministry of Education, and Guo Lei, Dean of the Institute of Mathematics and Systems Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences also delivered speeches respectively.

It is worth mentioning that Academician Wu Wenjun also attended the commemorative activities, and introduced the research directions of Euler and ancient mathematicians in China. April 2013 15 is the 306th anniversary of Euler's birth. Google changed the graffiti on its homepage to pay tribute to this mathematical genius. In the Google doodle that day, there were many Leonhard? Euler's mathematical achievements.