[Math] Euler’s errors

math-historyreference-request

What mathematical errors is Leonhard Euler known to have made?

PS: As I wrote in a comment below: "However, I would not consider proof to be an error merely because it's not a proof by present-day standards." Everybody knows Euler wrote about infinitely large integers and about infinitesimals in ways differing from what today is considered logically rigorous. I had in mind actually erroneous conclusions or arguments that we cannot today replace with any we consider rigorous.

Best Answer

Euler apparently had some trouble deriving the Jacobian used in change of variables for double integrals.

He began by considering congruent transformations consisting of (affine) linear functions, and got something like $$\mathrm{d}x\,\mathrm{d}y=m\sqrt{1-m^2}\,\mathrm{d}t^2+(1-2m^2)\,\mathrm{d}t\,\mathrm{d}v-m\sqrt{1-m^2}\,\mathrm{d}v^2$$ which he described as "obviously wrong and even meaningless." He then got

$$\mathrm{d}x\,\mathrm{d}y=\left(\frac{\partial y}{\partial v}\frac{\partial x}{\partial t}\right)\,\mathrm{d}t\,\mathrm{d}v$$ which was not symmetric in the variables, and therefore would not do. Finally, he derived the correct

$$\mathrm{d}x\,\mathrm{d}y=\left|\frac{\partial y}{\partial v}\frac{\partial x}{\partial t}-\frac{\partial y}{\partial t}\frac{\partial x}{\partial v}\right|\,\mathrm{d}t\,\mathrm{d}v$$ and lamented that simply multiplying out $$\mathrm{d}x\,\mathrm{d}y=\left(\frac{\partial x}{\partial t}\,\mathrm{d}t+\frac{\partial x}{\partial v}\,\mathrm{d}v\right)\left(\frac{\partial y}{\partial t}\,\mathrm{d}t+\frac{\partial y}{\partial v}\,\mathrm{d}v\right)=\left|\frac{\partial y}{\partial v}\frac{\partial x}{\partial t}+\frac{\partial y}{\partial t}\frac{\partial x}{\partial v}\right|\,\mathrm{d}t\,\mathrm{d}v$$ and shredding the squared differentials yielded an incorrect but annoyingly close answer.

But let us remember, if Euler committed errors it was only because of the unrivaled breadth of his work. If I could finish with a quote from the article cited below: "As a developer of algorithms to solve problems of various sorts, Euler has never been surpassed."


Source: For an excellent review of the history of the Jacobian, and to learn more about the details of what I have written, I highly recommend reading this article by Prof. Victor J. Katz (Internet Archive, jstor.

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