Euler Commission
The Euler Commission (official name: Euler Commission of the Swiss Academy of Natural Sciences ( SCNAT )) is a body that has set itself the goal of publishing and partially editing the written legacy of the mathematician Leonhard Euler as a complete scientific work.
history
The commission went back to an idea of the mathematician Ferdinand Rudio and was founded in July 1907. This means that the commission is three years older than the Swiss Mathematical Society founded in 1910 , which was formed in the course of the Euler project. The first volume appeared in 1911; up to 2007 a total of 72 volumes had been published. In order to financially support the project of the commission, a support association was founded in 1913: the Leonhard Euler Society . The mathematician and university professor Hanspeter Kraft has been President of the Euler Commission since 2003 .
Main task
To give a better overview of Euler's complete works, the commission has divided the writings into four parts. The series prima contains all of Euler's mathematical works, series secunda Euler's contributions to mechanics and astronomy, series tertia physical and other works, and the series quarta A finally the scientific correspondence. In the anniversary year 2007 - Euler's 300th birthday - the 30 volumes of the first series and the twelve volumes of the third series were all published. From the second series, 30 of 32 volumes were published, from the fourth four of ten volumes. This lengthy publication process is partly due to the limited financial resources of the commission and the relatively expensive publication costs, and partly to the fact that Euler wrote his works in German, French, Latin and Russian.
further activities
In addition to the publication of Euler's complete works, the commission supported and organized the festivities and scientific activities around the anniversary year 2007, in which Euler's 300th birthday was mainly celebrated in Basel. On April 20, 2007, the year was officially opened in the Martinskirche in Basel with international delegations. In the summer semester of 2007, an interdisciplinary lecture series on Euler's life and work against his background took place at the University of Basel . In addition to exhibitions, concerts and competitions, an international symposium took place in Euler's three cities, Basel, St. Petersburg and Berlin, with a focus on analysis , number theory and applied mathematics .
