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Jakob Bernoulli.
Jakob Bernoulli (Basel, December 27, 1654 - August
16, 1705), also known as Jacob, Jacques or
James Bernoulli was a Swiss mathematician and scientist and the older brother of
Johann Bernoulli.
Jakob Bernoulli met Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke on a trip to England in 1676, after which he devoted his
life to science and mathematics. He lectured at the University of
Basel from 1682, becoming Professor of Mathematics in 1687.
He corresponded with Gottfried Leibniz, and thus learnt
calculus, and collaborated with his brother Johann. His early papers on transcendental curves (1696)
and isoperimetry (1700, 1701) are early examples of its application.
His masterwork was Ars Conjectandi of 1713, a groundbreaking work on probability theory. The terms Bernoulli trial and Bernoulli Numbers
result from this work, and are named after him.
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