Johann Bernoulli (also known as Jean Bernoulli) was born in Basel, Switzerland. He studied physics and medicine and wrote his doctoral dissertation on medicine. However, his primary interest was mathematics, and Bernoulli studied mathematics privately with his brother, Jakob Bernoulli, who was a professor of mathematics at the University of Basel. While still formally a medical student, Bernoulli became passionately involved in the emerging field of infinitesimal calculus, joining, along with Jakob, the select group of European mathematicians who fully grasped calculus. His first notable accomplishment in the field of mathematics is the solution to the catenary problem, which was posed by his brother Jakob. In fact, Bernoulli's doctoral dissertation, "De motu musculorum," although dealing with muscle contractions, is a mathematical treatise, written under the influence of the Italian mathematician and physiologist Giovanni Alfonso Borelli.

Already regarded as a member of the European mathematical elite, Bernoulli traveled to...