Mathematical Notation Day - April 15

On this date in 1707 the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler was born. (Technically he was only born Swiss; the mathematician part came later. And he was also pretty adept at physics, astronomy, engineering, logic, and geography, probably more of a polymath.)

Considered one of the greatest mathematicians in history, his contributions to the field live on in much of the mathematics we do today:
  • Assigned the Greek letter π to the number representing the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter (3.14...),
  • Created the number e to represent a logarithm's natural base (2.71...),
  • Assigned the letter i to represent the square root of -1,
  • Introduced the notation f(x) to describe the y-axis of a function,
  • And used Σ to represent summation.


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