Bernoulli, Johann (1667–1748)

Swiss mathematician who with his brother Jakob Bernoulli pioneered German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz's calculus. He was the father of Daniel Bernoulli. Johann also contributed to many areas of applied mathematics, including the problem of a particle moving in a gravitational field. He found the equation of the catenary in 1690 and developed exponential calculus in 1691.

Bernoulli was born in Basel and studied medicine, but became professor of mathematics at Groningen, the Netherlands, 1694–1705, and then at Basel. Both Johann and Jakob wrote papers on a wide variety of mathematical and physical subjects, and it is often difficult to separate their work, although they never published together.