History and Background

Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss is often given the title of Prince of Mathematics which is likely because of his prodigious mathematical skills at an early age and many of his contributions to mathematics including number theory, classical mathematics, and applied mathematics such as statistics. His works have furthered mathematical discovery and his accomplishments are inspiring to all who are curious about the discovering of truth.

Gauss was born on April 30 1777 in Brunswick, Duchy of Bunswick-Wolfenbuttel to working class parents and died on February 1855 at the age of 77 in Gottingen, Kingdom of Hanover both in modern day central Germany. His father expected him to continue working in one of the family trades while his mother Dorethea Benze encouraged his educational pursuits. His computational talents attracted the attention of Charles William Ferdinand, the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel who supported Gauss’ education with a stipend (or scholarship) from an early age and well into his years at the University. While at University Gauss made a discovery that decided him in favor of studying Mathematics over languages; the regular 17 sided polygon (heptadecagon) is constructible from straight edge and compass. This type of problem had not be worked on since the days of the ancient Greeks because the constructibility of all the regular n-gons was presumed to have been determined. Being a somewhat solitary person, he preferred to work alone, and shunning professorship owing to his belief that most minds were not dedicated enough. He did read extensively the works of others often in other languages which he mastered easily and corresponded with other experts in their various fields, for Gauss himself was very involved with multiple domains of scientific research among them number theory, algebra, statistics, analysis, differential geometry, geodesy, geophysics, electrostatics, astronomy, Matrix theory, and optics.

Gauss is attributed with many mathematical discoveries and development, some of which he published in his seminal work Disquisitiones Arithmeticae which he published in his early 20s in which he unified many elements of number theory up to then and developed other aspects such as general congruences and modular arithmetic (also called clock arithmetic). Although he worked on many aspects of mathematics he was somewhat of a perfectionist. He would not publish his findings until they were above reproach and until he could state them briefly. Because of this, many findings of his colleagues and other mathematicians did not seem to surprise him because he had already figured them out. Fortunately for him, such claims are verifiable because he kept a journal of his notes which were also brief and to the point, but contained the discoveries that Gauss had indeed claimed to have known all along. It has been said that had he not published his findings in a timely manner, mathematic discovery has been held back 50 years. It’s at the same time a tribute to his intellect and an admonishment of the character traits that inhibited the prince of mathematics from publishing.

In 1801, the discovery of the planetoid Ceres by Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi sparked the fame of Gauss, then aged 24. Piazzi found the planetoid an noted its position for about month and a half in January and February but it became lost in the glare of the sun. His discovery was published and many attempted to solve the mystery of Ceres orbit in order to predict how to find it again. Submitted along with many other propositions, Gauss’s predictions turned out to be the most accurate as Ceres was rediscovered in December 1801. Gauss discovered the concepts of the normal distribution and the method of least squares to aide him in the determination of the planetoid. His method for determining orbits was published in 1809 in Theoria motus corporum coelestium in sectionibus conicis solem ambientum (Theory of motion of the celestial bodies moving in conic sections around the Sun) which is still used to this day to determine the locations and orbits of planets within our solar system by astronomers.

After the death of the Duke of Brunswick, Gauss took a position at the Observatory at Gottingem to support himself and his family which he occupied for many years occasionally doing a geodesic survey for the kingdom of Hannover, and doing electromagnetic experiments with Wilhelm Weber and discovering many properties of magnetism. He died in 1855 at the age of 77 in Gottingen.