Saturday, April 14, 2007

Leonhard Euler

It is better to celebrate what was than to mourn what is not. On April 15, 2007, we celebrate the 300th birthday of Leonhard Euler, the finest mathematician of the 18th century.

To many, I’m sure, his name is unfamiliar. He won no battles, nor held high office: yet our world today is utterly dependent on his work. Those who serve quietly often serve best.

I chose to honor the occasion with a monograph on Euler’s formula, considering the implications of raising "i" in Euler's formula to fractional powers of two:
coincidentally, the binary arithmetic of computers. You can think of it as Euler’s formula meets the digital age.

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