Talk:Daniel Bernoulli

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Comments[edit]

"natural philosophy" in his day. What should we say here? -- Tarquin

Suggestion "He died at Bâle, where he was professor of natural philosophy, what would currently be a professorate in physics"

If you need a family tree for the Bernoullis, there is one on fr:Famille Bernoulli. Ma'ame Michu 10:05, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'm doing a biography off of Daniel. so I searching on wikipedia.

ablest Bernoulli?[edit]

"Daniel Bernoulli was by far the ablest of the younger Bernoullis." -- Is this a neutral statement?! --TedPavlic 17:09, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Date of birth[edit]

Today Daniel's date of birth was changed from 8 Feb to 29 Jan, and his date of death was changed at well. I checked some of the online sources, and found that the St Andrews website says 8 Feb, Rouse Ball says 9 Feb, and the 1911 EB says 29 Jan. So I'm hoping that somebody with some time looks into this and can tell us which is correct, or whether we should just say that it is not known. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 20:45, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A brief case study in the writing of introductions[edit]

Observe the following introduction: "Daniel Bernoulli was a Swiss mathematician who spent much of his life in Basel where he died. A member of a talented family of mathematicians, physicists and philosophers, he is particularly remembered for his applications of mathematics to mechanics, especially fluid mechanics, and for his pioneering work in probability and statistics."

What doesn't make sense about this construction? Namely it's the first sentence, which implies that as "a Swiss mathematician", Bernoulli's major accomplishment is that he "spent much of his life in Basel where he died." I'm sure I don't need to point out what silly first sentence this is.

It makes much more sense for the introduction to begin: "Daniel Bernoulli was a Swiss mathematician, who is particularly remembered for his applications of mathematics to mechanics, especially fluid mechanics, and for his pioneering work in probability and statistics." Now the reader knows after one sentence that Bernoulli is known for his accomplishments in the field of mathematics, rather than for dying in Basel.

Fuzzform (talk) 23:23, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation?? German, French or Dutch? How long did Bernoulli stay in the Netherlands?[edit]

I was disappointed to find no indication of the pronunciation for the name Bernoulli. So I looked it up in the Duden 6 (Duden Aussprachewörterbuch), but I only found one transcription of the name, in German. The Duden dictionary either treated the name as German because that's what it is; or it turned around the problem by providing only a convenient pronunciation for when speaking in German (the Merriam-Webster dictionary does that for speakers of English). Next I checked the Collins English Dictonary. This provides a French and a German pronunciation. But Bernoulli - so the Wikipedia holds - was born in Groningen! How long did he stay there? Could Dutch have been his native language?? A Dutch phonetic rendering would NOT sound like a German one. Viktor Laszlo (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:32, 10 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Bernoulli was from a Swiss family and would probably have spoken Schweizerdeutsch at home and his parents would have pronounced their name that way. He was in Holland for five years, so he would have learned Dutch, but that is unlikely to have affected how his name was pronounced. Everyone I have heard say the name pronunce it Ber noo lee, with the accent on the noo. Apuldram (talk) 14:49, 10 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. It seems that Daniel's family was originally from Basle, they just travelled a lot. So altogether disregarding a Dutch pronuncation would seem to make sense. Was Basle actually Schweizerdeutsch-speaking in the 18th Century? ... A double transcription (German followed by French) seems to be appropriate for Bernoulli. You refer to the pronunciation as Ber noo lee. Is this when speaking English, German, or Schweizerdeutsch? The noo would suggest a long vowel. But the Duden 6 gives a German pronunciation with short /ʊ/. Viktor Laszlo (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:59, 10 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There's a pronunciation guide in http://www.beedictionary.com/meaning/bernoulli Apuldram (talk) 11:30, 11 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
But that only provides English pronunciations of English and foreign words. It doesn't help. There need to be a German and a French pronunciation. Viktor Laszlo (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:11, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The Bernoullis were polyglots speaking German, French, Latin, etc. The Collins French pronunciation guide (French: [bɛʁnuˈji]) is not an authentic representation of the family name because of the last syllable. According to the tourist office of Basel, hometown of the Bernoullis, the correct French pronunciation is bernou-li, not bernou-ill-i. A French science forum on internet confirmed that the correct pronunciation in French is bernou-li, not bernou-ill-i.[1] (French: [bɛʁnuˈli]). May be this should be discussed at the Bernoulli family page instead of at the pages of individual family members. Ceinturion (talk) 14:59, 25 September 2012 (UTC) - Edit: removed clumsy IPA -[reply]
The article is in English, and the pronunciation guide is to help English readers know how to pronounce the name. As the accepted English pronunciation is /bərˈnuːli/, which from the contribution by Ceinturion in Talk:Bernoulli family is also how it is correctly pronounced in Basel and France, there is no conflict. I will replace the pronunciation guide in the article. Apuldram (talk) 11:40, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above editing does not follow Wikipedia rules. Most articles where the pronunciation of a foreign name is shown present the original pronunciation, with or without the English one. See e.g. Antoine Lavoisier http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavoisier ; Leonhard Euler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler. Deleting original language pronunciations makes no sense: the Wikipedia has opted for the IPA throughout for the purpose of showing pronunciations. If only the English pronunciations were to be given in the English WP, why use the IPA in the first place? something like bur-NOO-lee would do the job splendidly. But this is not how things are normally done - so far, there's been a need to transcribe a foreign name in its own language. The above two examples suggest that it's the English adapation that's optional. ... As a compromise, I have restored the original pronunciations and kept the English adaptation also. Unfortunately, that's not all. It is maintained that "/bərˈnuːli/) [...] is also how it is correctly pronounced in Basel and France, there is no conflict ". But only non-phoneticians would accept a statement as bold as that. Which, if taken literally, would claim the phonotactical and prosodic structures of French, German and English to be similar if not identical to one another! Specifically, French and German have /ɛ/, not /ə/ in Bernoulli, and French could never have /ə/ in that position. French does not have (phonemic) long /u:/ as in English, in any word. German does not have long /u:/ in Bernoulli, but short /ʊ/. And these two vowels /u:/ and /ʊ/, despite being transcribed with the same symbols in both German and English, are phonetically very different in the two languages, which is why it's important each time to declare whether the transcription in question refers to one language or to the other. Think about /r/ in English and French: same phonological symbol, same sound?... The official IPA, finally, shows stress clearly and unambiguously. So "/bərˈnuːli/", with stress on the second syllable, is abnormal in French... Very questionable in this case. Now, wanna think again about the Collins and Duden transcriptions? Not perfect, perhaps, but the best contributions so far. Viktor Laszlo (talk) 15:07, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In French the problem is not 'Bernou', but '(i)lli'. For a long time the French have been confused about the spelling and the pronunciation. As mentioned before (here): "Le nom de famille est parfois orthographié, par erreur semble-t-il, Bernouilli", and "il faut dire ber-nou-li, mais beaucoup de gens disent bernou-ill-i". The French are gradually abandoning the wrong spelling (for example, in 1994 Paris changed the name Rue Bernouilli into Rue Bernoulli). So the Collins pronunciation guide (French: [bɛʁnuˈji]) was acceptable in the past, but it is undesirable in today's wikipedia. We would better remove it here. Ceinturion (talk) 00:12, 20 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Ceinturion (talk) 15:29, 23 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A sensible argument. But my objection was about the choice of /u:/ in French, which in that case was incorrect as it doesn't occur in that context. I understand that "'(i)lli'" is more problematic than the other bits. Now, though, one problem remains. The reference for the "Swiss German" pronunciation is exactly the one I provided months ago. Fantastic. The quotation has been altered and now it's formally incorrect. Now it looks as if the famous Mangold provided a Swiss German pronunciation for "Bernoulli". How unusual for Mangold! This transcription is simply Standard German. Maybe the transcription for the two variants is the same, but the bottom line is, it's a misquote. Who's responsible for this? I am sick of this controversy, I'll leave it as it is. I just cannot spend my life correcting the referencing style of others. Viktor Laszlo (talk) 13:56, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A Mental Calculator?[edit]

I am just wondering is he a mental calculator? And if he is, is he a fully verified Mental Calculator from genuine sources? Iamnofool6 (talk) 04:05, 6 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Did you mean was he a mental calculator? There is no evidence to support that and Bernoulli is not on the list of past mental calculators, like his friend Leonhard Euler. Apuldram (talk) 10:26, 6 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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Date of death[edit]

We say 27 March 1782. Many other sources say 17 March the same year. That almost suggests a confusion between Julian and Gregorian dates, except the difference by then was 11 days, not 10. Also, Basel had converted to Gregorian finally in 1700, so the whole question of which calendar was then applying should not arise at all.

Can we find out his accurate date of death? -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 23:05, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Physics[edit]

Say the word of Bernoulli's 2405:201:C04A:7014:A127:20DB:DB98:F07 (talk) 15:16, 3 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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Daniel Bernoulli

Daniel Bernoulli (1700–1782) was a Swiss mathematician and physicist, one of several prominent mathematicians of the Bernoulli family from Basel. He is particularly remembered for his applications of mathematics to mechanics, especially fluid mechanics, and for his pioneering work in probability and statistics. His name is commemorated in Bernoulli's principle, a particular example of the conservation of energy, and which describes the mathematics of the mechanism underlying the operation of two important technologies of the 20th century: the carburetor and the airplane wing. This oil-on-canvas portrait of Bernoulli, painted by an unknown artist, now hangs in the Basel Historical Museum.

Painting credit: unknown

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