Abstract
In 1854, the health of Privy Councillor Gauss, as his colleagues at the University of Göttingen called him, worsened decisively. There was no question of continuing the daily walks from the observatory to the literary museum, a habit of over twenty years. They managed to convince the professor, who was nearing eighty, to go to the doctor! He improved during the summer and even attended the opening of the Hannover-Göttingen railway. In January 1855, Gauss agreed to pose for a medallion by the artist Hesemann. After the scientist’s death in February 1855, a medal was prepared from the medallion, by order of the Hannover court. Beneath a bas-relief of Gauss, these words were written: Mathematicorum princeps (Prince of Mathematicians). The story of every real prince should begin with his childhood, embroidered with legends. Gauss is no exception.
Nihil actum reputans si quid superesset agendum. Judging that nothing was done if something was left undone.
Gauss 1
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References
As translated in Felix Klein, Development of Mathematics in the 19th Century, trans. Michael Ackerman (Brookline: Math Sci Press, 1979), p. 8.—Transl.
Felix Klein, Development of Mathematics in the 19th Century, trans. Michael Ackerman (Brookline: Math Sci Press, 1979), pp. 31–32.
Felix Klein, Development of Mathematics in the 19th Century, trans. Michael Ackerman (Brookline: Math Sci Press, 1979), pp. 29–30.
This appears in English in Tord Hall, Carl Friedrich Gauss, trans. Albert Froderberg, copyright © 1970 by The M.I.T. Press, p. 24.—Transl.
Development, p. 30.
Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, trans. Arthur A. Clarke (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1966), p. 32.
Disquisitiones, p. 459.
A Mathematician’s Miscellany (London: Methuen & Co., 1953), p. 42.
Development, p. 30.
also known as Johann Bolyai—Transl.
H.S.M. Coxeter, Introduction to Geometry, copyright © 1969 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., p. 27. Reprinted by permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, p. xviii.
Euler was apparently the first to conjecture the law of quadratic reciprocity, but both his and Legendre’s proofs were incomplete. Gauss was the first to supply a correct proof. See Morris Kline, Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1972), pp. 611–612, 814–815.—Transl.
Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, p. xviii
Hall, Gauss, p. 24.
Development, p. 24.
There is an 1857 English translation of this book by Charles Henry Davis, recently reprinted (New York: Dover, 1963).—Transl.
There is an English translation by Adam Hiltebeitel and James Morehead (Hewlett, NY: Raven Press, 1966).—Transl.
sometimes known as Wolfgang Bolyai—Transl.
This translation is taken from G. Waldo Dunnington, Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science (New York: Exposition Press, 1955), p. 180.
This translation is taken from Hall, Gauss, p. 114.
Development, pp. 17—18.
Development, p. 57.
As translated in Bartel L. van der Waerden, Science Awakening I, trans. Arnold Dresden (New York: Oxford University Press), p. 161.
As translated in Bartel L. van der Waerden, Science Awakening I, trans. Arnold Dresden (New York: Oxford University Press), p. 161.
As translated in Bartel L. van der Waerden, Science Awakening I, trans. Arnold Dresden (New York: Oxford University Press), p. 163.
As translated in Bartel L. van der Waerden, Science Awakening I, trans. Arnold Dresden (New York: Oxford University Press), p. 163.
As translated in Bartel L. van der Waerden, Science Awakening I, trans. Arnold Dresden (New York: Oxford University Press), p. 209.
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© 1988 Birkhäuser Boston
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Gindikin, S.G. (1988). Prince of Mathematicians. In: Tales of Physicists and Mathematicians. Birkhäuser Boston. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-3942-0_5
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