Nicholas II Bernoulli

Johann Rudolf Huber , Portrait of Nikolaus II Bernoulli (1723).

Nicholas II Bernoulli (* January 27 ^{. Jul} / 6. February  1695 ^greg. In Basel , † July 29 ^jul. / 9. August  1726 ^greg. In St. Petersburg ) was a mathematician and lawyer of the family of Bernoulli .

He was the son of Johann I Bernoulli and the older brother of Daniel Bernoulli , whom he also taught mathematics, and of Johann II Bernoulli . As a teenager he already knew several languages. From the age of 13 he studied mathematics and law at the University of Basel . In 1711 he became a master of philosophy; In 1715 he received his doctorate in law. 1716-17 he stayed as a private tutor in Venice. He served his father as an assistant u. a. in the correspondence on the priority dispute between Isaac Newton and Leibniz , and also in a priority dispute between his father and the English mathematician Brook Taylor . In 1720 he posed the problem of reciprocal orthogonal trajectories , which was intended as a challenge to the English Newtonians . From 1723 he was a law professor at the Bernese Upper School . In 1725 he and his brother Daniel, with whom he was touring Italy and France at the time, were appointed by Peter the Great to the newly founded Academy of St. Petersburg . There he discussed with his brother Daniel the Saint Petersburg paradox of probability theory, about which his brother wrote several papers. Eight months after his appointment, he developed a fever and died. Leonhard Euler , recommended by the Bernoulli brothers, took over his professorship in 1727 .

He is a cousin of Nikolaus I Bernoulli , who worked in a similar field.

literature

• The works of Johann I and Nicolaus II Bernoulli . Volume 6. Springer, 2007, ISBN 978-3-7643-7367-2
• Moritz Cantor :  Bernoulli, Niclaus II . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 477 f.
• Peter Merian: Die mathematicians Bernoulli , Schweighausersche Universitäts-Buchdruckerei, Basel 1860, pages 39-41.
• Theodor Bühler: Bernoulli, Nicolaus. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• JO Fleckenstein: Bernoulli, Nikolaus II . In: Charles Coulston Gillispie (Ed.): Dictionary of Scientific Biography . tape 2 : Hans Berger - Christoph Buys Ballot . Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1970, p. 57-58 .

Web links

• John J. O'Connor, Edmund F. Robertson :  Nikolaus II Bernoulli. In: MacTutor History of Mathematics archive .
• Overview of works on Nicholas II Bernoulli (French)
• Entry in the Biographical Encyclopedia (Russian)
• Erik Amburger database at the Institute for East and Southeast European Studies
• Christian Goldbach : Vita Nicolai Bernoulli, Commentarii Academiae Scientiarum Imperialis Petropolitanae, Volume 2 , 1727, pages 482-488 (Latin)
• Fritz Nagel and Sulamith Gehr (eds.): Basel edition of the Bernoulli correspondence. Retrieved September 6, 2012 . 

Individual evidence

1. ^ Aloys Henning: Medical knowledge creation in Russia before 1800: The proportion of German-speaking doctors. In: Würzburger medical history reports 23, 2004, pp. 428–435; here: p. 429.