Johann Samuel Koenig (1712–57)

German mathematician and physicist. Studied under Johann Bernoulli I and his son Daniel, but entered legal practice in Bern in 1737 after failing to obtain a professorship in mathematics. Wrote extensively on the shape of the earth, bee cells, and other geometrical subjects. Formulated several physical laws and a controversial critique of Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis’s principle of least action.