Nicolaus Bernoulli (born October 21, 1687 in Basel, died November 29, 1759 in Basel; also spelled Nicolas or Nikolas), was a Swiss mathematician and was one of the many prominent mathematicians in the Bernoulli family.
In 1704 he graduated at the University of Basel under Jakob Bernoulli and obtained his PhD five years later with a work on probability theory in law. 1716 he obtained the Galileo-chair at the University of Padua, where he worked on differential equations and geometry. In 1722 he returned to Switzerland and obtained a chair in Logics at the University of Basel.
His most important contributions can be found in his letters, in particular to Pierre Rémond de Montmort. In these letters, he introduced in particular the St. Petersburg Paradox. He also communicated with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Leonhard Euler.
External links
* O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Nicolaus I Bernoulli", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Bernoulli_Nicolaus(I).html .
Further reading
* Fleckenstein, J.O. (1970–80). "Bernoulli, Nikolaus I". Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 2. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 56–57. ISBN 0684101149.
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