Related papers: Dances between continuous and discrete: Euler's su…
Euler's solution in 1734 of the Basel problem, which asks for a closed form expression for the sum of the reciprocals of all perfect squares, is one of the most celebrated results of mathematical analysis. In the modern era, numerous proofs…
The Basel problem consists in finding the sum of the reciprocals of the squares of the positive integers. It was finally solved in 1735 by Leonhard Euler. In this paper, we propose a simple proof based on the Weierstrass Sine product…
During a first St. Petersburg period Leonhard Euler, in his early twenties, became interested in the Basel problem: summing the series of inverse squares (posed by Pietro Mengoli in mid 17th century). In the words of Andre Weil (1989) "as…
The Basel problem, solved by Leonhard Euler in 1734, asks to resolve $\zeta(2)$, the sum of the reciprocals of the squares of the natural numbers, i.e. the sum of the infinite series: \begin{equation}…
Translation from the Latin original, "Inventio summae cuiusque seriei ex dato termino generali" (1735). E47 in the Enestrom index. In this paper Euler derives the Euler-Maclaurin summation formula, by expressing y(x-1) with the Taylor…
A simple proof of Euler's formula which states that the sum of the reciprocals of all natural numbers squared equals $\pi^2/6$ is presented based on the distribution theory introduced by Laurent Schwartz. Additional identities are obtained…
This translation has been published in Stephen Hawking (ed.), "God Created the Integers", published in 2007 by Running Press. There may have been some changes to the final published version and this copy. This is a translation from the…
Because of its relation to the distribution of prime numbers, the Riemann zeta function {\zeta} (s) is one of the most important functions in mathematics. The zeta function is defined by the following formula for any complex number s with…
The purpose of this paper is to present series expansions for even powers of the number $\pi$. This is accomplished by generalizing Euler's method for solving the Basel Problem, which was published in 1735. We employ elementary symmetric…
Translation of "Methodus succincta summas serierum infinitarum per formulas differentiales investigandi" (1780). Euler wants to represent some given series of functions S(x)=X(x)+X(x+1)+X(x+2)+etc. in a different way. He writes S as a…
Summation formulas, such as the Euler-Maclaurin expansion or Gregory's quadrature, have found many applications in mathematics, ranging from accelerating series, to evaluating fractional sums and analyzing asymptotics, among others. We show…
We introduce a natural definition for sums of the form \[ \sum_{\nu=1}^x f(\nu) \] when the number of terms x is a rather arbitrary real or even complex number. The resulting theory includes the known interpolation of the factorial by the…
Euler explored the problem of finding three numbers such that the sum or difference of any two of them is a perfect square. He discovered a parametric solution represented by polynomials of degree 18 and identified the smallest of these…
Euler gives a long introduction, giving all the arguments for and against the use of divergent series in calculus and then gives his own definition of the sum of a diverging series. Then in the second half of this paper he evaluates the the…
Euler had considered the problem of finding three integers whose sum, product, and also the sum of the products of the integers, taken two at a time, are all perfect squares. Euler's methods of solving the problem lead to parametric…
About four centuries ago, Johann Faulhaber developed formulas for the power sum $1^n + 2^n + \cdots + m^n$ in terms of $m(m+1)/2$. The resulting polynomials are called the Faulhaber polynomials. We first give a short survey of Faulhaber's…
E158 in the Enestrom index. Translation of the Latin original "Observationes analyticae variae de combinationibus" (1741). This paper introduces the problem of partitions, or partitio numerorum (the partition of integers). In the first part…
In 1776, L. Euler proposed three methods, called prima methodus, secunda methodus and tertia methodus, to calculate formulae for double zeta values. However strictly speaking, his last two methods are mathematically incomplete and require…
Linear harmonic number sums had been studied by a variety of authors during the last centuries, but only few results are known about nonlinear Euler sums of quadratic or even higher degree. The first systematic study on nonlinear Euler sums…
The Euler-Maclaurin summation formula is generalized to a modified form by expanding the periodic Bernoulli polynomials as its Fourier series and taking cuts, which includes both the Euler-Maclaurin summation formula and the Poission…