Why a Bernoulli Edition?

The Bernoulli Family

Works and correspondence

The scientific legacy

The Edition (about us)

Links

Contacts:
P. Radelet : General Editor
F. Nagel : Editor responsible for Correspondence
B. Gaino : Secretary

JOHANN III (1744–1807)
Like his uncle Nicolaus II, he was a child prodigy. Though still little more than a boy he had received a Master's degree at the age of fourteen. Two factors worked against his productivity as a mathematician—his delicate health and his inordinate appetite for all knowledge on every subject. At the age of twenty he accepted an invitation from Frederick II to reorganize the Observatory of the Berlin Academy, where he was appointed Astronomer Royal. However it appears that the king of Prussia never showed enough enthusiasm for the work that would have facilitated the purchase of new instruments. In Berlin he made the acquaintance of Lambert, a prolific worker in several areas of Mathematical Physics, particularly Celestial Mechanics. After Lambert's death, Johann saw to it that the work he had left was published. In partnership with Hindenburg, they together published the Leipziger Magazin für reine und angewandte Mathematik (1786–89).

Johann III was an enthusiastic traveller and the accounts of his travels which he published were in high demand. But more important is his voluminous correspondence—2800 items—much of it discovered in Stockholm in 1877. In contrast to that of his father, this enormous correspondence yields little of scientific interest, but reveals much of human interest about his eminent contemporaries, including Maupertuis, Voltaire—and many others.

Of his work, that directed to problems in elasticity appears to be the most significant and worthy of attention.

Ó Mathúna, 1999