Daniel Bernoulli

Daniel Bernoulli was a Swiss mathematician and physicist from the Basel family of mathematicians, born in 1700 in Groningen and dying in 1782. He is remembered for applying mathematics to mechanics, especially fluid mechanics, and for pioneering work in probability and statistics. Bernoulli's principle, a particular example of the conservation of energy that underlies the carburetor and the aeroplane wing, bears his name. He studied medicine and earned a doctorate in anatomy and botany in 1721, then went to St. Petersburg in 1724 as professor of mathematics, a post he left in 1733. Back at the University of Basel he held chairs in medicine, metaphysics and natural philosophy until his death. His chief work was Hydrodynamica, published in 1738, and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1750.