Johann Samuel Konig was a German mathematician who is remembered largely for his disagreements with Leonhard Euler, concerning the principle of least action. He is also remembered as a professor who served in Franeker and The Hague.
Background
Johann Samuel Konig was born on July 31, 1712, in Budingen, Germany. He was the son of the theologian, philologist, and mathematician Samuel Konig, who after a very active existence spent his last twenty years as a professor of Oriental studies in his native city of Bern. His mother was Anna Maria Nothiger.
Education
Konig received his first instruction in science from his father, whose enthusiasm he shared. After studying for a short time in Bern, in 1729 he attended the lectures of Frédéric de Treytorrens in Lausanne. In 1730 he left for Basel to study under Johann I Bernoulli and, beginning in 1733, under the latter’s son Daniel as well, thus receiving the best mathematical training possible. During his stay of more than four years in Basel, Koenig, along with Clairaut and Maupertuis, studied the whole of mathematics, particularly Newton’s Principia mathematica.
Koenig was introduced to Leibniz’ philosophical system by Jakob Hermann, who returned from St. Petersburg in 1731. He was so impressed by it that in 1735 he went to Marburg to further his knowledge of philosophy and law under the guidance of Leibniz’ disciple Christian von Wolff.
Career
Konig’s first mathematical publications appeared in 1735. In 1737 he returned to Bern to compete for the chair at Lausanne left vacant by the death of Treytorrens. Konig then began to practice law in Bern and was so successful that he seriously intended to give up mathematics, which he had found something less than lucrative. First, however, he wanted to write on dynamics; two articles appeared in 1738. Before the start of the new year Konig was in Paris, where in March 1739 Maupertuis introduced him to the marquise du Châtelet, Voltaire’s learned friend. During the following months Konig instructed the marquise du Châtelet in mathematics and Leibnizian philosophy. He also went to Charenton with Voltaire and the marquise to visit Réaumur, who inspired Konig to write his paper on the structure of honeycombs. Following the break with the marquise - the result, according to René Taton, of a disagreement about money - Konig remained in Paris for a year and a half and then settled in Bern. By this time, after repeated unsuccessful attempts, he had given up hope of obtaining a chair in Lausanne. Besides conducting his legal practice, he studied the works of Clairaut and Maupertuis, whose influence is evident in his book on the shape of the earth.
In 1744, through the intervention of Albrecht von Haller, Konig finally obtained a suitable position as professor of philosophy and mathematics at the University of Franeker, in the Netherlands, and had considerable success there. Under the patronage of Prince William IV of Orange he moved to The Hague in 1749 as privy councillor and librarian.
While still in Franeker, Konig wrote the draft of his important essay on the principle of least action, which was directed against Maupertuis. The controversy touched off by this work, which was published in March 1751, resulted in perhaps the ugliest of all the famous scientific disputes. Its principal figures were Konig, Maupertuis, Euler, Frederick II, and Voltaire; and, as is well known, it left an unseemly stain on Euler’s otherwise untarnished escutcheon. The quarrel occupied Konig’s last years almost completely; moreover, he had been ill for several years before it started. Konig emerged the moral victor from this affair, in which all the great scientists of Europe - except Maupertuis and Euler - were on his side. The later finding of Kabitz testifies to Konig’s irreproachable character.
Politics
In 1744 Konig was exiled from Bern for ten years for having signed a political petition that was considered too liberal, although it was in fact very courteously written.
Membership
Konig was a member of the Paris Academy of Sciences, the Royal Prussian Academy, the Royal Society, and the Royal British Society of Sciences in Gottingen.
Personality
A candid and amiable man, Konig was distinguished by erudition of unusual breadth even for his time.