Euler and infinite speed (Q1946005)

This is a short but a charming article about young Euler who, at the age of 20, submitted a 15-page habilitation thesis in application for a vacant professorship position at the University of Basel. He also had an addendum with six seemingly widely unrelated topics, out of which the third one was the most noted, namely he discussed a thought experiment what would happen to the stone thrown into a tunnel bored diametrically through the center of the Earth. The answer that was plausible was given by Galileo in 1632. Euler claimed, without explanation, that the stone would return to the starting point after reaching the center. After Euler was denied this professorship, he left, in anger, for St. Petersburg, never to return to Switzerland again, with a period in Berlin between 1741 and 1766. And, as it was the case with several controversies of the time, Voltaire, a spice in every soup, published ``Lampoon of Doctor Akakia'' where he made Euler regret his errors in the said theses.