SG1719 Issued 6.3.2007
On March 6, 2007 Switzerland issued a stamp to commemorate the 300th Anniversary of
the birth of Leonhard Euler (1707-1783).
Stamp design based on a portrait. The pastel likeness on which the Euler special stamp is
based was created in 1753 in Berlin by the talented Swiss portrait artist Emanuel
Handmann (1718-1781) and shows the great scientist – Euler had already lost the sight of
his right eye – in a remarkably spontaneous mood, dressed in a silk housecoat. The image
of a polyhedral body at which Euler seems to be looking and the equation “e – k + f = 2”
(in English, V [ertices] - [Edges] + F [aces] = 2) recall one of his best-known discoveries
in elementary mathematics, Euler’s polyhedral formula (in our example, V = 12, E = 19
and F = 9). In a letter to his friend Christian Goldbach dated 14 November 1750, Euler
first refers to the fact that the relationship between the number of edges, vertices and
faces of a body – more specifically a convex polyhedron – is always the same, describing
it as “H + S = A + 2”. Several years later, he published and proved this relationship in the
journal of the St. Petersburg Academy. This was one of the first general statements about
those characteristics of geometrical shapes which are independent of relative proportions
so do not vary, even when deformed. Euler thus founded a new branch of mathematics
known as “combinatorial topology”.
Like several of Euler’s discoveries, the polyhedron formula is one of the best known
mathematical theorems ever. This small indication of what the impressive mind of man in
the portrait produced is intended as a contribution to perpetuating the memory of this
great scholar born 300 years ago in Basel.
Martin Mattmuller, Euler Archive, Basel.
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