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Leonhard Euler was born in Basel, Switzerland, the son of a pastor.
At age 13 his father sent him to the University at Basel to study theology,
but Euler soon decided to devote himself tot the sciences. Besides theology
he studied mathematics, medicine, astronomy, physics, and oriental languages.
It is said that Euler could calculate as effortlessly as "men breath
or eagles fly." One hundred years before Euler, Fermat conjectured that
any number of the form 2^(2^n)+1 must be prime, and in fact it was known
that for n from 1 to 4, the corresponding numbers in the sequence 5,
17, 257, and 65537. The fifth number, 4294967297 was also thought to
be prime until Euler, with his phenomenal calculating ability, showed
that it is the product of 641 X 6700417 and so is not prime. Euler published
more than any other mathematician in history did. His collected works
comprise 75 volumes. Although he was blind for the last 17 years of
his life, he continued to work and publish. In his writings he popularized
the use of the symbols for pi, e, and i. One of Euler's most lasting
contributions is the development of complex numbers.
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