Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782), the son of the Swiss mathematician Johann Bernoulli, studied medicine and mathematics in his hometown of Basel as well as in Heidelberg and Straßburg. In 1725 he accepted an offer from the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg where he spent eight fruitful years. In this period he wrote significant papers on theoretical mechanics. In 1733 Bernoulli became a professor of anatomy and botany in Basel. After a long waiting period the scientist finally received the desired professorship for physics in 1750. Bernoulli's ground-breaking achievement was the linking of the Newtonian physics with the methods of the Leibnizsche infinitesimal calculus. In his major work, the famous "Hydrodynamica" (Basel 1738) Bernoulli developed the theory of water wheels and wind wheels as well as that of water pumps and water screws.