Bernouilli

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

or BERNOULLI (bernö-yē), a family which produced eight distinguished men of science. The family fled from Antwerp during the Alva administration, going first to Frankfort, and afterward to Basel. 1. JAMES, born in Basel in 1654, became professor of mathematics there 1687, and died 1705. He applied the differential calculus to difficult questions of geometry and mechanics; calculated the loxodromic and catenary curve, the logarithmic spirals, the evolutes of several curved lines, and discovered the so-called numbers of Bernouilli. 2. JOHN, born in Basel, in 1667, wrote with his brother, James, a treatise on the differential calculus; developed the integral calculus, and discovered, independently of Leibnitz, the exponential calculus. In 1694 he became Doctor of Medicine in Basel, and in 1695 went, as Professor of Mathematics, to Groningen. After the death of his brother he received the professorship of mathematics in Basel, which he held until his death in 1748. 3. NICHOLAS, nephew of the former, born in Basel in 1687; in 1705 went to Groningen to John Bernouilli, and, re returning with him to Basel, became there professor of mathematics. On the recommendation of Leibnitz he went as professor of mathematics to Padua in 1716, but returned to Basel in 1722 as professor of logic, and in 1731 became professor of Roman and feudal law. He died in 1759. The three following were sons of the above mentioned John Bernouilli: 4. NICHOLAS, born in Basel, in 1695, became professor of law there in 1723, and died in St. Petersburg in 1726. 5. DANIEL, born at Groningen in 1700; studied medicine. At the age of 21 he went to St. Petersburg, returning in 1733 to Basel, where he became professor of anatomy and botany, and in 1750 professor of natural philosophy. He retired in 1777, and died in 1782. 6. JOHN, born in Basel in 1710, went to St. Petersburg in 1732, became professor of rhetoric in Basel in 1743, and in 1748 professor of mathematics. He died in 1790. The two following were his sons: 7. JOHN, licentiate of law and royal astronomer in Berlin, born in Basel in 1744. He lived after 1799 in Berlin as Director of the Mathematical Department of the Academy. He died in 1807. 8. JAMES, born at Basel in 1759; went to St. Petersburg, where he became professor of mathematics; married a granddaughter of Euler, and died in 1789 while bathing in the Neva.