Johann Bernoulli (II), son of mathematician Johann Bernoulli (I) was born on May 28, 1710 in Basel, Switzerland. Bernoulli senior was the chair of mathematics at Basel University and was a source of his son’s interest in mathematics. His offspring, Bernoulli (II), perhaps the most successful of his three sons, studied law and in 1727, obtained the degree of doctor of jurisprudence.
Johann immersed himself in mathematics, and in 1736 was awarded a prize of the French Academy for his suggestive studies of aether. On the death of his father he became his successor as professor of mathematics in the University of Basel. He subsequently became a four-time recipient of prizes of the Academy of Sciences of Paris for essays on the propagation of light, and the magnet. He enjoyed the friendship of P. L. M. de Maupertuis, who died at Johann’s home while on his way to Berlin. Johann’s two sons, Johann and Jakob, became the last noted mathematicians of the Bernoulli family.
Although Johann’s mathematical production dwindled to occasional academic papers and a treatise, his shyness and frail constitution did not prevent him from engaging in extensive scientific correspondence (about 900 items) and from furthering the publication, in four volumes, of his father’s Opera Omnia. He became an icon for the mathematical genius of his native city in the second half of the eighteenth century.
