Euler's Correspondence with Joseph Louis de Lagrange

Lagrange (1736-1813) was an Italian-French Mathematician and Astronomer. By the age of 18 he was teaching geometry at the Rotal Artillery School of Turin, where he organized a discussion group that became the Turin Academy of Sciences. In 1755, Lagrange sent Euler a letter in which he discussed the Calculus of Variations. Euler was deeply impressed by Lagrange's work, and he held back his own work on the subject to let Lagrange publish first.

Although Euler and Lagrange never met, when Euler left Berlin for St. Petersburg in 1766, he recommended that Lagrange succeed him as the director of the Berlin Academy. Over the course of a long and celebrated career (he would be lionized by Marie Antoinette, and made a count by Napoleon before his death), Lagrange published a systemization of mechanics using his calculus of variations (Trait� de m�canique analytique), and did significant work on the three-body problem and astronomical perturbations.


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Publication Information: The files given below are available directly from the Euler Archive. Gallica has also made the Euler-Lagrange correspondence available online: the Euler-Lagrange correspondence.

List of all known correspondence (37 letters total):
OO1352 Lagrange to Euler 28 June, 1754 Copy of OO1352
OO1353 Lagrange to Euler 12 August, 1755 Copy of OO1353
OO1354 Euler to Lagrange 06 September, 1755 Copy of OO1354
OO1355 Lagrange to Euler 20 November, 1755 Copy of OO1355
OO1356 Euler to Lagrange 24 April, 1756 Copy of OO1356
OO1357 Lagrange to Euler 19 May, 1756 Copy of OO1357
OO1358 Euler to Lagrange 02 September, 1756 Copy of OO1358
OO1359 Lagrange to Euler 03 October, 1756
OO1360 Lagrange to Euler 04 August, 1758 Copy of OO1360
OO1361 Lagrange to Euler 28 July, 1759 Copy of OO1361
OO1362 Euler to Lagrange 02 October, 1759 Copy of OO1362
OO1363 Euler to Lagrange 27 October, 1759 Copy of OO1363
OO1364 Lagrange to Euler 24 November, 1759 Copy of OO1364
OO1365 Lagrange to Euler 26 December, 1759 Copy of OO1365
OO1366 Euler to Lagrange 01 January, 1760 Copy of OO1366
OO1367 Lagrange to Euler 01 March, 1760 Copy of OO1367
OO1368 Euler to Lagrange 24 June, 1760 Copy of OO1368
OO1369 Lagrange to Euler 14 June, 1762 Copy of OO1369
OO1370 Lagrange to Euler 03 October, 1762 Copy of OO1370
OO1371 Euler to Lagrange 09 November, 1762 Copy of OO1371
OO1372 Euler to Lagrange 16 February, 1765 Copy of OO1372
OO1373 Euler to Lagrange 03 May, 1766 Copy of OO1373
OO1374 Euler to Lagrange 09 January, 1767 Copy of OO1374
OO1375 Lagrange to Euler 19 December, 1767
OO1376 Euler to Lagrange 05 February, 1768 Copy of OO1376
OO1377 Lagrange to Euler 22 December, 1769
OO1378 Euler to Lagrange 16 January, 1770 Copy of OO1378
OO1379 Lagrange to Euler 12 February, 1770
OO1380 Euler to Lagrange 09 March, 1770 Copy of OO1380
OO1381 Lagrange to Euler 30 December, 1770
OO1382 Euler to Lagrange 20 May, 1771 Copy of OO1382
OO1383 Lagrange to Euler 15 February, 1772
OO1384 Lagrange to Euler 31 July, 1773
OO1385 Euler to Lagrange 24 September, 1773 Copy of OO1385
OO1386 Euler to Lagrange 26 January, 1775 Copy of OO1386
OO1387 Lagrange to Euler 10 February, 1775
OO1388 Euler to Lagrange 23 March, 1775 Copy of OO1388


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