Daniel Bernoulli
'Daniel Bernoulli' (
February 8,
1700 –
March 17,
1782) was a
Dutch-born
mathematician who spent much of his life in
Basel,
Switzerland where he died. A member of a talented family of mathematicians and scientists, he is particularly remembered for his applications of mathematics to mechanics, especially
fluid mechanics, and for his pioneering work in
probability and
statistics.
Early life
Bernoulli family tree
Born in
Groningen, the son of
Johann Bernoulli, nephew of
Jakob Bernoulli, younger brother of
Nicolaus II Bernoulli, and older brother of Johann II, Daniel Bernoulli has been described as "by far the ablest of the younger Bernoullis".
[1] He is said to have had a bad relationship with his father. Upon both of them entering and tying for first place in a scientific contest at the
University of Paris, Johann, unable to bear the "shame" of being compared to his offspring, banned Daniel from his house. Johann Bernoulli also tried to steal Daniel's book ''Hydrodynamica'' and rename it ''Hydraulica.'' Despite Daniel's attempts at reconciliation, his father carried the grudge until his death.
[2]
When Daniel was five, his younger brother Johann II Bernoulli was born. Around schooling age, his father, Johann Bernoulli, encouraged him to study business, there being poor rewards awating a mathematician. However, Daniel refused, because he wanted to study mathematics. He later gave in to his father's wish and studied business. His father then asked him to study in
medicine, and Daniel agreed under the condition that his father would teach him mathematics privately, which they continued for some time.
He was a contemporary and intimate friend of
Leonard Euler. He went to
St. Petersburg in
1724 as professor of mathematics, but was unhappy there, and a temporary illness in
1733 gave him an excuse for leaving.
He returned to the
University of Basel, where he successively held the chairs of
medicine,
metaphysics and
natural philosophy until his death.
Mathematical work
His earliest mathematical work was the ''Exercitationes'' (''Mathematical Exercises''), published in
1724 (the
Riccati equation). Two years later he pointed out for the first time the frequent desirability of resolving a compound motion into motions of translation and motions of rotation. His chief work is his ''Hydrodynamique'' (''Hydrodynamica''), published in
1738; it resembles
Joseph Louis Lagrange's ''Méchanique Analytique'' in being arranged so that all the results are consequences of a single principle, namely, in this case, the conservation of energy. This was followed by a memoir on the theory of the tides, to which, conjointly with the memoirs by Euler and
Colin Maclaurin, a prize was awarded by the French Academy: these three memoirs contain all that was done on this subject between the publication of
Isaac Newton's ''
Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica'' and the investigations of
Pierre-Simon Laplace. Bernoulli also wrote a large number of papers on various mechanical questions, especially on problems connected with vibrating strings, and the solutions given by
Brook Taylor and by
Jean le Rond d'Alembert.
Statistics
Daniel Bernoulli was also the author in
1738 of ''Specimen theoriae novae de mensura sortis (Exposition of a New Theory on the Measurement of Risk)'',
[3] in which the
St. Petersburg paradox was the base of the economic theory of
risk aversion,
risk premium and
utility.
[4]
One of the earliest attempts to analyse a statistical problem involving
censored data was Bernoulli's
1766 analysis of
smallpox morbidity and mortality data to demonstrate the efficacy of
vaccination.
[5]
Physics
He is the earliest writer who attempted to formulate a
kinetic theory of gases, and he applied the idea to explain
Boyle's law.
He worked with Euler on
elasticity and the development of the
Euler-Bernoulli beam equation.
[6] Bernoulli's principle is of critical use in
aerodynamics.
[7]
References
1. Rouse Ball (1908)
2. O'Connor & Robertson (1998)
3. English translation in ''Econometrica'' '22' (1954) ''pp''23-36
4. Martin (2004)
5. reprinted in Blower (2004)
6. Timoshenko (1983)
7. [Anon.] (2001) "Daniel Bernoulli", ''Encyclopaedia Britannica''
Bibliography
''Original entry based on the
public domain Rouse History of Mathematics''
----
★ [Anon.] (1911) "
Bernoulli, ''
Encyclopaedia Britannica''
★ [Anon.] (2001) "Daniel Bernoulli", ''
Encyclopaedia Britannica''
★ Blower, S. (2004), D, Bernoulli's "", ''Reviews of Medical Virolology'', '14': 275–288
★
From Watt to Clausius: The Rise of Thermodynamics in the Early Industrial Age, Cardwell, D.S.L., , , London, 1971, ISBN 0-435-54150-1
★
★ (1998)
★ Pacey, A.J. & Fisher, S.J. (1967) "Daniel Bernoulli and the ''vis viva'' of compressed air", ''British Journal for the History of Science'' '3', 388-92
★
Rouse Ball, W. W. [1908] (2003) "
The Bernoullis", in ''A Short Account of the History of Mathematics'', 4th ed., Dover, ISBN 0486206300
★
External links
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