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The Google Doodle today celebrates the life of lauded mathematician Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss - who made an unusual gravestone wish before his death.
The mathematician had an exceptional influence in many fields of maths and science and would have been 241 years old on April 30 2018.
He is sometimes called 'The Prince of Mathematicians'.
Gauss, whose name is spelt Gauß in his native German, was born in 1777 and he died in 1855.
Although his mother was illiterate Gauss was a child prodigy who, according to legend, worked out how to add up all the numbers from 1 to 100 when he was just eight.
Gauss noticed that if he was to split the numbers into two groups (1 to 50 and 51 to100), he could add them together vertically to get a sum of 101. Gauss realized then that his final total would be 50(101) = 5050.
Gauss' discoveries regarding the construction of polygons pleased him so much he requested a regular heptadecagon (that is,a 17-sided shape) be inscribed on his tombstone.
(Image: L‡szl— NŽmeth/Wikipedia)
(Image: Google)
However the stonemason decline because the construction would be difficult and essentially just look like a circle.
His magnum opus, Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, was completed when he was just 21 in 1798.
Three years later Gauss announced he had calculated the orbit of the asteroid Ceres. which is the largest object in the asteroid belt that lies between Mars and Jupiter.
He married in 1805 and had a son and a daughter with her before she died in 1809.
(Image: Science Photo Library RF)
(Image: SSPL)
Gauss remarried a year later and had three more children but biographers say the mathematician was never quite the same without his first wife suffering from bouts of depression, so he grew to dominate his children.
He did not want any of his sons to enter mathematics or science for "fear of lowering the family name", as he believed none of them would surpass his own achievements.
His second wife died in 1831.
That same year Gauss started to collaborate with physics professor Wilhelm Weber , leading to new knowledge in magnetism and the discovery of Kirchhoff's circuit laws in electricity.
(Image: Chi And H/Wikipedia)
It was at this time he formulated Gauss's Law, relating the distribution of electric charge to the resulting electric field.
Together with Weber they produced the first electromechanical telegraph in 1833 which connected the observatory with the institute for physics in Gottingen.
In 1840 he published the influential Dioptrische Untersuchungen. Gauss didn't write often with his life motto being "few, but ripe".
Five years later he became a member of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands.
He died of a heart attack in 1855 with his brain preserved and studied by Rudolf Wagner.
It was found to have mass slightly above average at 1,492 grams and a larger cerebral area.
In his extraordinary lifetime Gauss contributed to a number of fields including number theory, algebra, statistics, analysis, differential geometry, geodesy, geophysics, mechanics, electrostatics, magnetic fields, astronomy, matrix theory and optics.
Google • Getty Gauss was a German mathematician born on April 30, 1777 in Brunswick
Gauss was a German mathematician born on April 30, 1777 in Brunswick. He contributed to a number of fields in the subject, including: number theory, algebra, geophysics, mechanics and statistics. The laudable work of Gauss, otherwise spelt Gauß in German, is one of the reasons he earned the nickname “The Prince of Mathematicians”. Gauss’ mother was illiterate, but that did not stop him from cementing himself as a legendary figure in the fields of maths and science.
One of the mathematician’s greatest achievements came in 1786 after discovering a heptadecagon, or a 17-sided polygon, could be made with a compass and straightedge on March 30. After making such a discovery, Gauss requested a regular heptadecagon be inscribed on his tombstone when he died. The stonemason responsible for putting together his stone refused - he claimed such construction would have been too difficult and that the unique qualities of the heptadecagon would not have been represented. It is believed that by the age of eight, Gauss could add every number together from one to 100.
The best Google Doodle designs Wed, March 14, 2018 Google Doodle is a temporary alteration of the logo on Google's homepage which honours holidays, events and people. Play slideshow Google 1 of 23 Google Doodle celebrates the 30th anniversary of Pi Day, a day for celebrating the mathematical constant
One of the mathematician's greatest achievements came with the production of his textbook Disquisitiones Arithmeticae. The book is based on number theory and was written in Latin by Gauss in 1798 when he was 21-years-old. Gauss was 24 when the book was published.
Google Google has produced a Doodle to mark the 241st birthday of Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss
The text is widely credited for paving the way for modern number theory as we know it. In 1805 Gauss married Johanna Osthoff and had a son and daughter with her. She died four years after they married and the couple’s most recent child, Louis, died the year after.
Getty Gauss requested a regular heptadecagon be inscribed on his tombstone when he died
Die Anekdote darüber, wie der neunjährige Carl Friedrich Gauß sehr schnell und sehr clever eine Matheaufgabe seines Lehrers löste, ist legendär. Gauß und seine Klassenkameraden sollten die Zahlen von 1 bis 100 addieren, der Lehrer dachte, die Kinder wären damit eine Weile beschäftigt.
Doch Gauß entdeckte einen Trick, der ihm das umständliche Addieren von hundert Zahlen ersparte. Gauß ordnete die hundert Zahlen einfach paarweise an. Er schrieb: 1+100, 2+99, 3+98, 4+97, ... , 50+51. Damit stand das Ergebnis schon da: Die 50 Zahlenpaare ergeben jeweils 101 - also ist die gesuchte Summe 50 x 101 = 5050.
Gauß soll einmal über sich selbst gesagt haben, er habe das Rechnen vor dem Sprechen gelernt.
Gauß war Mathematiker, Astronom und Physiker. Schon als Jugendlicher beeindruckte er den Herzog von Braunschweig mit seinem Wissen, der förderte fortan Gauß’ Karriere - und der leistete Herausragendes. Nach Gauß sind viele mathematisch-physikalische Phänomene und Lösungen benannt (mehr zu seinem Primzahlsatz lesen Sie beispielsweise hier). Er galt schon zu Lebzeiten als mathematisches Genie. Viele Ideen und Resultate seiner Arbeit wurden aber erst nach seinem Tod bei der Bearbeitung seines Nachlasses entdeckt.
Mehr Hintergründe zur Biografie und dem Schaffen Gauß’ können Sie hier auf der Website der Universität Göttingen nachlesen. Und falls Sie selbst Spaß an kniffligen Aufgaben haben, dann gelangen Sie hier zu einem Mathe-Quiz.
Google Google Doodle für Gauß
Geboren wurde Gauß 1777 in Braunschweig. Später heiratete er Johanna Elisabeth Rosina Osthoff, sie starb allerdings vier Jahre später, das war im Oktober 1809. Gauß heiratete im folgenden Jahr erneut, die Braut war Friederica Wilhelmine Waldeck, eine enge Freundin seiner ersten Ehefrau. Gauß hatte insgesamt sechs Kinder aus beiden Ehen.
Gauß starb 1855 in Göttingen. An diesem Montag erinnert Google an den Geburtstag des berühmten Wissenschaftlers: Er wäre 241 Jahre alt geworden. Auf der Startseite in zahlreichen Ländern ist deshalb eine Gauß-Illustration zu sehen, inklusive seinem Porträt, Planeten und Gauß-Kurven. Sie stammt laut Google von Bene Rohlmann.
