Abstract
Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1885), sometimes called the Prince of Mathematics, is one of the greatest mathematicians all times. In addition to an incredible ability to compute (especially important in the 1800s) and an unsurpassed talent for mathematical proof, Gauss had an inventive imagination and a restless interest in nature and he made important discoveries in a staggering range of pure and applied mathematics. He was also a pioneer in the constructionist sense, digging deeply into many of the accepted mathematical truths of his time in order to really understand what everyone “knew” had to be true. Perhaps the only really unfortunate side to Gauss is that he wrote about his work only very sparingly and many mathematicians that followed him were doomed to reinvent things that he already knew.
There is a tradition of opposition between adherents of induction and deduction. In my view it would be just as sensible for the two ends of a worm to quarrel. (Whitehead)
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Eriksson, K., Estep, D., Johnson, C. (2004). Mathematical Induction. In: Applied Mathematics: Body and Soul. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-05796-4_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-05796-4_6
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-05659-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-662-05796-4
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive