>>16986215 There's so many 20th century mathematicians who far exceed him. The leaps that Euler made do not even compare to the revolution initiated by Grothendieck.
Yeah pretty much any well regarded mathematician from the 1880s and beyond would run circles around Euler and Gauss. Hell, even Abel was doing that at the time. Euler plucked a lot of ordinary foundational low hanging fruit and since he had an early mover advantage he's well regarded.
Euler and Voltaire maintained a famous intellectual rivalry at the court of King Frederick the Great of Prussia. They represented two opposite poles: Euler was a deeply religious mathematician, while Voltaire was a brilliant, satirical philosopher who often mocked the Swiss mathematician's lack of eloquence.During the 18th century, both geniuses crossed paths at the Berlin Academy of Sciences, leading to several direct clashes:Metaphysical debates: They frequently argued over philosophy. Euler often left enraged by Voltaire's rhetorical superiority and sharp wit, as Voltaire openly mocked the technical arguments the mathematician tried to use.Critique of calculus: Voltaire openly dismissed the new mathematics of the era, famously claiming that calculus was "the art of numbering and measuring a thing whose existence cannot be conceived".Personal mockery: At Frederick's court, Voltaire mockingly nicknamed Euler "my cyclops", taking advantage of the fact that the mathematician had lost the sight in one eye years earlier.The engineering clash: Frederick the Great also mocked Euler's practical skills. After hiring him to design a network of pipes and water pumps for his Sanssouci palace—which failed due to a geometric miscalculation—the king declared: "Vanity of vanities! Vanity of geometry!". Well /sci/now what?
>>16991093 >asking a guy who does paper math all day to do practical things man, that frederick the great was kinda retarded. why not hire a real engineer?
>>16986215 Um yes he white literally was the GOAT and that’s not an exaggeration. He was a monster of a publisher. People had to stop naming things after him. It was that bad. Or he was just that good.
>>16987883 You got it backwards, it's easier to prove things now because of how many tools there are in the mathematician's toolset. We learn about calculus when we're kids.