{{Short description|Swiss mathematician (1755–1826)}} {{Infobox scientist | name = Nicolas Fuss | image = UBH Portr BS Fuss N 1755 1 (cropped).jpg | image_size = | caption = | birth_date = {{birth date|1755|01|29|df=y}} | birth_place = Basel, Switzerland | death_date = {{death date and age|1826|01|04|1755|01|30|df=y}} | death_place = Saint Petersburg, Russia | fields = Mathematics | workplaces = | alma_mater = | academic_advisors = Leonhard Euler | doctoral_students = | known_for = | awards = }} '''Nicolas Fuss''' (29 January 1755 – 4 January 1826), also known as '''Nikolai Fuss''', was a Swiss mathematician, living most of his life in Russia.
==Biography== Fuss was born in Basel, Switzerland. He moved to Saint Petersburg to serve as a mathematical assistant to Leonhard Euler from 1773–1783, and remained there until his death. He contributed to spherical trigonometry, differential equations, the optics of microscopes and telescopes, differential geometry, and actuarial science. He also contributed to Euclidean geometry, including the problem of Apollonius.
In 1797, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. From 1800 to 1826, Fuss served as the permanent secretary to the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg. He was elected as a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1812.<ref name=AAAS>{{cite web|title=Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter F|url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterF.pdf|publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences|access-date=28 July 2014}}</ref> He died in Saint Petersburg.
== Family == Nicolas Fuss was married to Albertine Benedikte Philippine Luise Euler (1766–1822). Albertine Euler was the daughter of Leonhard Euler's eldest son, Johann Albrecht Euler (1734–1800), and his wife, Anna Sophie Charlotte Hagemeister. Pauline Fuss, a daughter of Nicolas and Albertine, married the Russian chemist Genrikh Struve. Nicolas's son, Paul Heinrich Fuss (1798–1855),<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/sfz18114.html#ndbcontent_sfz19018|title=Fuß}}</ref> edited the first attempt at a collected works of Euler.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://eulerarchive.maa.org/|title=Historical and Biographical Resources}}</ref> Paul Heinrich was a member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg from 1823 and its secretary from 1826.<ref name=":0" /> Nicolas's son, Georg Albert (1806–1854),<ref name=":0" /> was from 1839 an astronomer in Pulkovo and then from 1848 in Vilnius; he also published on magnetism.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=Geogr., magnet. u. hypsometr. Bestimmungen auf e. Reise nach Sibirien u. China in d. J. 1830-32|journal=Mémoires de l'Académie Impériale des Sciences de St. Pétersbourg|volume=Série VI, Tome III, 1838}}</ref>
==See also== * Catenary * Fuss' theorem for bicentric quadrilaterals * Fuss–Catalan number * Fuss Peak, a volcano in the Kuril Islands
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Sources== * {{HLS|42911|Fuss, Niklaus|author=Rudolf Mumenthaler}}, 2006 * {{NDB|5|742|743|Fuß, Nikolaus|Kurt-R. Biermann|116878894}}
==External links== * [http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Fuss.html MacTutor History of Mathematics] * {{MathGenealogy |id=122708 }}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fuss, Nicolas}}
Category:1755 births Category:1826 deaths Category:18th-century mathematicians from the Russian Empire Category:18th-century Swiss mathematicians Category:19th-century mathematicians from the Russian Empire Category:19th-century Swiss mathematicians Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Category:Full members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences Category:Members of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala Category:Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Category:Swiss emigrants to the Russian Empire