How Euler Did It

Sandifer (mathematics, Western Connecticut State U.) takes a suitably respectful but also jocose tone in this compilation of his 40 monthly chapters about the work of the Swiss mathematician and scientist Leonhard Euler, arguably the possessor of the best brain of the eighteenth century. Well-represented here are Euler's contributions to geometry, including his enhancements of Pythagoras, number theory, including his work on odd perfect numbers and amicable numbers, combinatorics, including his work on Venn diagrams and orthogonal matrices, and a full range of his work in analysis, one article of which shows how Euler discovered America. Sandifer includes the official list of Euler's top ten theorems and a number of period illustrations. This is published in commemoration of Euler's entrance into his fourth century. Annotation c2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Ed Sandifer is Professor of Mathematics of Western Connecticut State University. He earned his PhD at the University of Massachusetts under John Fogarty, studying ring theory. He became interested in Euler while attending the Institute for the History of Mathematics and Its Uses in Teaching, IHMT, several summers in Washington DC, under the tutelage of Fred Rickey, Victor Katz and Ron Calinger. Because of a series of advising mistakes, as an undergraduate he studied more foreign languages than he had to, so now he can read the works of Euler in their original Latin, French and German. Occasionally he reads Spanish colonial mathematics in its original as well. Now he is secretary of the Euler Society, and he writes a monthly on-line column, How Euler Did It, for the MAA. he has also written The Early Mathematics of Leonhard Euler, also published by the MAA, and edited along with Robert E. Bradley, Leonhard Euler: Life, Work and Legacy. He and hi wife Theresa, live in a small town in western Connecticut, and he has run the Boston Marathon every year since 1973.