Portrait or Leonhard Euler by Jakob Emanuel Handmann (1753) Source

Euler’s Solution to the Basel Problem

The proof is short and accessible. Yet it evaded mathematicians for nearly a century.

The Basel Problem is simple to state. Yet it stumped mathematical minds for 90 years. A 28-year-old physics professor named Leonhard Euler turned heads when he published a solution in 1734. Here is the problem and Euler’s solution.