The Seven Bridges of Königsberg — An imaginary conversation with Euler and how the graph theory came to be (Part 1)

According to Wikipedia

Leonhard Euler (15 April 1707–18 September 1783) was a Swiss mathematician, physicist, astronomer, geographer, logician, and engineer, who founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made pioneering and influential discoveries in many other branches of mathematics such as analytic number theory, complex analysis, and infinitesimal calculus.

Portrait of Leonhard Euler

Euler was famous for using graph theory to contribute to solving the Seven Bridges of Königsberg, a historically notable problem in Mathematics.

In this series, I had an imaginary conversation with Leonhard Euler to understand his life story and the inspiration behind developing the graph theory, especially applying that knowledge to contribute to the solution of the Seven Bridges of Königsberg.

Me: Leonhard, thank you for blocking some time off your busy schedule to have this conversation with me. My audience and I are grateful for this time.

Leonhard: I’m excited to be here! Thank you for having me😊

Me: Let’s begin with your origin story! You’re known as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, geographer, logician, and engineer — a truly Renaissance man!😊 What sort of childhood did you have that shaped you to become the man you are today?

Leonhard: Well, fundamentally I see myself as a mathematician because all the others — physics, astronomy, geography, logic, engineering — have mathematics at the heart of it.

In terms of my childhood, I was born in Basel, a city in northwestern Switzerland to Paul III Euler, who was a pastor of the Reformed Church, and Margaretha Brucker. Not long after my birth, my parents moved to Riehen, a municipality a few miles from Basel — this is where I was raised.

My dad loved mathematics so much that he studied under the feet of the great Jacob Bernoulli — one of the early proponents of Leibnizian calculus. My dad exposed me to mathematics at a very young age and since then I never looked back. When I was about eight years old, I was sent to live with my maternal grand mom. I enrolled in a Latin grammar school in Basel. My school did not teach mathematics so I received private tutoring from Johannes Burckhardt, a young theologian with a keen interest in mathematics. So I guess all these early developments contributed to my becoming a mathematician.

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Me: Awesome! So at the age of 13 years, you enrolled in the University of Basel?😲

Leonhard: Yes! It might sound like a great feat but to be honest, it was not unusual at that time for early teenagers to enroll in the uni. Some of my classmates were even less than 13 years old.

Me: I see! Let’s dive a bit into your uni life.

Leonhard: Yeah, so at the uni, I took elementary mathematics with the younger brother of Jacob Bernoulli — Johann Bernoulli. Johann was a key contributor to my development as a mathematician — he assigned me mathematical problems to solve each week and encouraged me to read advanced math textbooks. This guy was very busy but he offered to answer my math questions every Sunday afternoon.

Me: Wow!

Leonhard: Oh, yes! My dad wanted me to be a pastor so I started studying theology as I was doing a master’s degree in philosophy. I did not fancy theology, and neither did I want to be a pastor. Through the help of Johann, I was able to convince my dad to pursue a career as a mathematician.

Me: 😀

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Me: Now, let’s dive into the events that led to your contribution to solving the Seven Bridges of Königsberg

TO BE CONTINUED