The Bernoulli family of Basel produced three great mathematical geniuses, the oldest of whom was Jakob Bernoulli (1654—1705). He was born, worked and died here, holding a chair in Mathematics at the University of Basel. Being a contemporary of Leibniz and in constant correspondence with him, Jakob was a significant contributor to the development of calculus, inventing the logarithmic spiral. He also developed the foundations of probability theory, including the Bernoulli distribution and Bernoulli numbers.

His tombstone in the cloisters of the cathedral, bears the motto Eadem mutata resurgo (changed and yet the same, I rise again), a reference to the property of logarithmic spirals that they are invariant under scaling: magnification simply rotates them. Jakob asked for such a spiral to appear on his grave, akin to the sphere and cylinder carved on the tomb of Archimedes. But in one of the great ironies of the history of mathematics, the mason cut an Archimedean spiral instead, as shown at left.

His younger brother, Johann Bernoulli, also contributed to calculus and developed some of the foundations of fluid dynamics. And Johann’s son, Daniel Bernoulli, wrote the definitive work on fluid dynamics, which included the fundamental effect known as Bernoulli’s Principle.