brachistochrone

This issue appeared in June 1669, in the German mathematics magazine Acta Eruditorium, founded by Leibniz. At that time, it was common for mathematicians to pose challenges in this way and the Swiss mathematician Johann Bernoulli proposed the following: Given two points A and B on a vertical plane, what is the curve drawn from one point to another such that a particle under the action of gravity alone moves in the shortest time interval?…