Christian Goldbach

Christian Goldbach ( , ; 18 March 1690 – 20 November 1764) was a Prussian mathematician connected with some important research mainly in number theory; he also studied law and took an interest in and a role in the Russian court. He studied at the Royal Albertus University. After finishing his studies he went on long educational trips from 1710 to 1724 through Europe, visiting other German states, England, the Netherlands, Italy, and France, meeting with many famous mathematicians, such as Gottfried Leibniz, Leonhard Euler, and Nicholas I Bernoulli. These acquaintances started Goldbach's interest in mathematics. He briefly attended Oxford University in 1713 and, while he was there, Goldbach studied mathematics with John Wallis and Isaac Newton. Also, Goldbach's travels fostered his interest in philology, archaeology, metaphysics, ballistics, and medicine. Christian Wolff had invited and had written recommendations for all the Germans who traveled to Saint Petersburg for the academy except Goldbach.

Contributions

Goldbach is most noted for his correspondence with Leibniz, Euler, and Bernoulli, especially in his 1742 letter to Euler stating his Goldbach's conjecture. He also studied and proved some theorems on perfect powers, such as the Goldbach–Euler theorem, and made several notable contributions to analysis. He also proved a result concerning Fermat numbers that is called Goldbach's theorem.

Impact on Euler It is Goldbach and Euler's correspondence that contains some of Goldbach's most important contributions to mathematics, specifically number theory.

Works (1729) De transformatione serierum (1732) De terminis generalibus serierum