Of no little importance are Euler's labours in analytical mechanics. Says Whewell: "The person who did most to give to analysis the generality and symmetry which are now its pride, was also the person who made mechanics analytical; I mean Euler."[11] He worked out the theory of the rotation of a body around a fixed point, established the general equations of motion of a free body, and the general equation of hydrodynamics. He solved an immense number and variety of mechanical problems, which arose in his mind on all occasions. Thus, on reading Virgil's lines, "The anchor drops, the rushing keel is staid," he could not help inquiring what would be the ship's motion in such a case. About the same time as Daniel Bernoulli he published the Principle of the Conservation of Areas and defended the principle of "least action," advanced by Maupertius. He wrote also on tides and on sound.
Astronomy owes to Euler the method of the variation of arbitrary constants. By it he attacked the problem of perturbations, explaining, in case of two planets, the secular variations of eccentricities, nodes, etc. He was one of the first to take up with success the theory of the moon's motion by giving approximate solutions to the "problem of three bodies." He laid a sound basis for the calculation of tables of the moon. These researches on the moon's motion, which captured two prizes, were carried on while he was blind, with the assistance of his sons and two of his pupils.
Most of his memoirs are contained in the transactions of the Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg, and in those of the Academy at Berlin. From 1728 to 1783 a large portion of the Petropolitan transactions were filled by his writings. He had engaged to furnish the Petersburg Academy with memoirs in sufficient number to enrich its acts for twenty years—a promise more than fulfilled, for down to 1818 the volumes usually contained one or more papers of his. It has
