The Later Life and Legacy of Karl Pearson

Abstract

Carl Friedrich Gauss was a most unusual polymath. Considered one of the greatest mathematical minds in history, it is possible that there could have been born a dozen like him who went unnoticed throughout life. Gauss grew out of the humblest of beginnings, demonstrated fantastic resilience and rose to great accomplishments, but were it not the help of a benefactor who saw something in young Gauss that no one else could see, we might have never benefited from his brilliance. Gauss also rose out of an era in which only the well-to-do could spend a lifetime studying the most esoteric of subjects. Indeed, by some calculations, he never published the majority of his ideas. He was busy maintaining a livelihood for his family at a time when publication was both financially expensive and time consuming.