section_path: Early life
section_name: Early life
paragraph_text: Early life
  
  Leonhard Euler was born on 15 April 1707, in Basel to Paul III Euler, a pastor of the Reformed Church, and Marguerite (née Brucker), whose ancestors include a number of well-known scholars in the classics. He was the oldest of four children, having two younger sisters, Anna Maria and Maria Magdalena, and a younger brother, Johann Heinrich. Soon after the birth of Leonhard, the Euler family moved from Basel to the town of Riehen, Switzerland, where his father became pastor in the local church and Leonhard spent most of his childhood.
  
  From a young age, Euler received schooling in mathematics from his father, who had taken courses from Jacob Bernoulli some years earlier at the University of Basel. Around the age of eight, Euler was sent to live at his maternal grandmother's house and enrolled in the Latin school in Basel. In addition, he received private tutoring from Johannes Burckhardt, a young theologian with a keen interest in mathematics.
  
  In 1720, at thirteen years of age, Euler enrolled at the University of Basel. Attending university at such a young age was not unusual at the time. The course on elementary mathematics was given by Johann Bernoulli, the younger brother of the deceased Jacob Bernoulli (who had taught Euler's father). Johann Bernoulli and Euler soon got to know each other better. Euler described Bernoulli in his autobiography:
  
  It was during this time that Euler, backed by Bernoulli, obtained his father's consent to become a mathematician instead of a pastor.
  
  In 1723, Euler received a Master of Philosophy with a dissertation that compared the philosophies of René Descartes and Isaac Newton. Afterwards, he enrolled in the theological faculty of the University of Basel.
  
  In 1726, Euler completed a dissertation on the propagation of sound with the title De Sono with which he unsuccessfully attempted to obtain a position at the University of Basel. In 1727, he entered the Paris Academy prize competition (offered annually and later biennially by the academy beginning in 1720) for the first time. The problem posed that year was to find the best way to place the masts on a ship. Pierre Bouguer, who became known as "the father of naval architecture", won and Euler took second place. Over the years, Euler entered this competition 15 times, winning 12 of them.