1728-1777

Swiss-German Mathematician

Overcoming enormous social barriers, Johann Heinrich Lambert entered the ranks of Europe's foremost mathematicians. He did so without becoming part of the Continental academic establishment and, partly for that reason, much of his most advanced work was lost for many years, including his studies of what came to be known as non-Euclidean geometry. Nonetheless, he contributed to the knowledge of pi and the theory of errors.

Born on August 25, 1728, in Mulhouse, an independent town allied with Switzerland, Lambert was the son of Lukas (a tailor) and Elisabeth Lambert. Because of the family's poverty, he had to leave school at age 12 to help his father, but, during the years that followed, he progressed to more professional positions. Thus, by 1745, when he was 17, Lambert was working as secretary to the editor of a newspaper in Basel, Switzerland. Two years later, when his father...