Daniel Bernoulli — mathematician / physicist with roots in the Russian Empire
Daniel Bernoulli, born in Groningen in 1700 into the Basel mathematical dynasty, went to Saint Petersburg in 1725 as one of the first recruits to the newly founded Imperial Academy of Sciences. He was twenty-five. His brother Nicolas went with him and died of fever within a year, which left Daniel isolated in a city he found difficult and a climate he disliked.
He stayed eight years, and they were the most productive of his life. He held the chair of mathematics, worked on oscillation, probability and the kinetic behaviour of fluids, and completed there the work published in 1738 as Hydrodynamica — the book containing what is now called the Bernoulli principle, the relationship between fluid speed and pressure that underlies the explanation of flight.
His other lasting contribution to Russia was institutional. It was Bernoulli who pressed for the appointment of his friend Leonhard Euler, then twenty, and arranged the invitation that brought Euler to Saint Petersburg in 1727. When Bernoulli returned to Basel in 1733, Euler succeeded him in the chair of mathematics.
He spent the rest of his career at Basel, teaching anatomy, botany and eventually physics, and died there in 1782. He remained a corresponding member of the Saint Petersburg Academy for decades, and much of his later work continued to appear in its proceedings.
"Saint Petersburg Academy, 1725-1733"
Migration storyTracing the roots — Saint Petersburg (Russia)
The Bernoulli principle was worked out during his Russian years.
Held a chair at the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences from 1725 to 1733, where he did the work published as Hydrodynamica and helped bring Euler to Russia.
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Saint Petersburg (Russia). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.