Carl Friedrich Gauss

The 19th Century saw an unprecedented increase in the breadth and complexity of
mathematical concepts. Both France and Germany were caught up in the age of revolution
which swept Europe in the late 18th Century, but the two countries treated mathematics
quite differently.
Germany, on the other hand, under the influence of the great educationalist
Wilhelm von Humboldt, took a rather different approach, supporting pure
mathematics for its own sake, detached from the demands of the state and
military.
It was in this environment that the young German prodigy Carl Friedrich Gauss,
sometimes called the “Prince of Mathematics”, received his education at the
Mathematics is known as the "queen of sciences," and Gauss is

widely regarded as the most influential mathematician of the past
1000 years. Some even call him the greatest mathematician of all
time, but it seems difficult to compare mathematical achievements
of recent centuries to those of the ancient Greeks. Some settle for
the more modest title ``greatest mathematician since antiquity.''
Today, students of all technical disciplines are required to take math

classes, in particular, analysis, linear algebra, and statistics. In all of
these fields, essential results and methods are due to Gauss: the
fundamental theorem of algebra, Gauss elimination, the method of
least squares, the Gaussian distribution of statistics, etc.
The ``prince of math'' also pioneered differential geometry, number

theory (his favorite subject), and non-Euclidean geometry.
Furthermore, he made major contributions to astronomy and

physics. The basic unit of magnetism is 1 Gauss.
prestigious University of Göttingen.
At 15, Gauss was the first to find any kind of a pattern in the occurrence of prime
numbers, a problem which had exercised the minds of the best mathematicians
since ancient times.
Gauss gave the first clear exposition of complex numbers and of the investigation
of functions of complex variables in the early 19th Century. Although imaginary
numbers involving i(the imaginary unit, equal to the square root of -1) had been
used since as early as the 16th Century to solve equations that could not be
solved in any other way, and despite Euler’s ground-breaking work on imaginary
and complex numbers in the 18th Century, there was still no clear picture of how
imaginary numbers connected with real numbers until the early 19th Century.
Gauss was not the first to intepret complex numbers graphically but Gauss was
certainly responsible for popularizing the practice and also formally introduced
the standard notation a + bi for complex numbers. As a result, the theory of
complex numbers received a notable expansion, and its full potential began to be
unleashed.
Gauss also retained a strong interest in theoretical astrononomy, and he held the
post of Director of the astronomical observatory in Göttingen for many years.
When the planetoid Ceres was in the process of being identified in the late 17th
Century, Gauss made a prediction of its position which varied greatly from the
predictions of most other astronomers of the time. But, when Ceres was finally
discovered in 1801, it was almost exacly where Gauss had predicted. Although he
did not explain his methods at the time, this was one of the first applications of
the least squares approximation method, usually attributed to Gauss, although
also claimed by the Frenchman Legendre. Gauss claimed to have done the
logarithmic calculations in his head.
The German Georg Cantor was an outstanding violinist, but an even more
outstanding mathematician. Cantor’s first ten papers were on number theory,
after which he turned his attention to calculus (or analysis as it had become
known by this time), solving a difficult open problem on the uniqueness of the
representation of a function by trigonometric series. His main legacy, though, is as
perhaps the first mathematician to really understand the meaning of infinity and
to give it mathematical precision.
Back in the 17th Century, Galileo had tried to confront the idea of infinity and the
apparent contradictions thrown up by comparisons of different infinities, but in
the end shied away from the problem. Galileo had essentially dodged the issue
and reluctantly concluded that concepts like less, equals and greater could only
be applied to finite sets of numbers, and not to infinite sets. Cantor, however, was
not content with this compromise.
Cantor's starting point was to say that, if it was possible to add 1 and 1, or 25 and
25, etc, then it ought to be possible to add infinity and infinity. He realized that it
was actually possible to add and subtract infinities, and that beyond what was
normally thought of as infinity existed another, larger infinity, and then other
infinities beyond that. In fact, he showed that there may be infinitely many sets of
infinite numbers - an infinity of infinities - some bigger than others, a concept
which clearly has philosophical, as well as just mathematical, significance. The
sheer audacity of Cantor’s theory set off a quiet revolution in the mathematical
community, and changed forever the way mathematics is approached.
Elliptic Geometry. Elliptic geometry is a non-Euclideangeometry with

positive curvature which replaces the parallel postulate with the statement
"through any point in the plane, there exist no lines parallel to a given line."

Carl Friedrich Gauss

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Carl Friedrich Gauss

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The 19th Century saw an unprecedented increase in the breadth and complexity of

Mathematics is known as the "queen of sciences," and Gauss is

Today, students of all technical disciplines are required to take math

The ``prince of math'' also pioneered differential geometry, number

Furthermore, he made major contributions to astronomy and

Elliptic Geometry. Elliptic geometry is a non-Euclideangeometry with

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