Enlightenment mathematician Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) was born on this day in Brunswick, Germany, 241 years ago.
Gauss is the subject of Google's latest Doodle, celebrating influential figures and movements from science and the arts.
He is known for his groundbreaking contributions to a huge variety of fields, from number theory, geometry and probability to planetary astronomy and electromagnetism.
A child prodigy, Gauss was raised in the Duchy of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel (now Lower Saxony) to a working-class family and quickly distinguished himself by correcting his father's calculations of the household bills.
At just eight, he could add up all numbers from one to 100, noticing that by adding numbers from the opposite ends of the sequence he could always achieve a total of 101 (1 + 100 = 101, 2 + 99 = 101, 3 + 98 = 101 etc.), a virtuoso display that stunned his schoolteachers.
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His talent was such that he was commended to the Duke of Brunswick in 1791, who became Carl Friedrich's patron and would pay for him to continue his education and study mathematics at the University of Gottingen between 1795 and 1798.
Gauss impressed with his discovery in 1792 that a regular 17-sided polygon could be drawn with a ruler and compass, a finding made by analysing the factorisation of polynominal equations. He would later request that a stonemason engrave a heptadecagon on his tombstone.
The young man completed a doctoral thesis in 1797 breaking down the fundamental theorem of algebra, boldly critiquing long-accepted principles, before publishing his influential Disquitiones Arithmeticae in 1801, which would set the pace for the study of number theory throughout the 19th century.
Gauss's next feat was the rediscovery of Ceres, a dwarf planet first spotted by Italian astronomer Guiseppe Piazzi in 1800 that had disappeared behind the sun before observers could chart its orbit. Gauss predicated the precise point of the planetoid's reemergence from the glare using comprehensive approximation methods to determine its speed and the arc of its trajectory.
His success saw him made Professor of Astronomy and director of the astronomical observatory in Gottingen, a position he would hold for the remainder of his life.
In 1818, he began a geodetic survey of the Kingdom of Hanover at the region's monarch's request - a task simplified thanks to Gauss's invention of the heliotrope, an instrument for measuring the sun's rays over great distances.
The polymath went on to produce further works on number theory and cartography before occupying himself with the study of the earth's magnetic field in the 1830s.
He died of a heart attack in Gottingen on 23 February 1855.
Known as a somewhat remote and even aloof figure, Gauss was said to have met the news that his wife was dying while he was busy in his study with the words: "Tell her to wait a moment till I'm done". The anecdote was a favourite of science fiction writer Isaac Asimov but is commonly dismissed as apocryphal.
Gauss's extraordinary contribution to "the queen of the sciences" is in no doubt, however.
Victorian mathematician Henry John Stephen Smith summarised his influence accordingly:
"If we except the great name of [Sir Isaac] Newton it is probable that no mathematicians of any age or country have ever surpassed Gauss in the combination of an abundant fertility of invention with an absolute rigorousness in demonstration, which the ancient Greeks themselves might have envied."
In addition to a number of monuments and prizes named in his honour, Gauss has been commemorated with an asteroid, a crater of the moon, an extinct volcano and an Antarctic expedition ship all christened in tribute.
Born 241 years ago on April 30, Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss is often described as the "Prince of Mathematicians" and hailed for his contributions to number theory, geometry, probability theory and astronomy.
In the German mathematician's honour, Google is changing its logo in 28 countries to a doodle of him and his achievements.
This is his story:
Prodigy
Gauss was born in 1777 in Brunswick to poor, working-class parents.
His mother, who was illiterate, never recorded her son's birthday. However, she recalled that he had been born on a Wednesday, eight days after the Feast of Ascension, 40 days after Easter.
So, Gauss used that information to determine his birthday, developing his algorithm for calculating the date of Easter during the 1700s or 1800s.
His father was a gardener and regarded as an upright, honest man. However, he was known for being harsh and discouraging his son from attending school.
Gauss's mother was the one who recognised his talents and insisted that he develop them through education.
He was described as a child prodigy, and he often said he could count before he could talk. At the age of seven, he is said to have amused his teachers by adding the integers from one to 100 almost instantly.
While still a young teenager, he became the first person to prove the Law of Quadratic Reciprocity, a math theory determining whether quadratic equations can be solved.
By the age of 15, his reputation had reached the Duke of Brunswick, and in 1791 he granted him financial assistance to continue his education.
Disquisitiones Artihmeticae
Gauss entered the Collegium Carolinum in 1792. There, he studied modern and ancient languages.
For a time, he was undecided on whether to devote his life to mathematics or philology (the study of languages). He chose mathematics, specifically arithmetic, saying famously: "Mathematics is the queen of sciences and arithmetic is the queen of mathematics."
Gauss's first significant discovery was that a regular polygon of 17 sides could be constructed by ruler and compass alone. This was done through analysis of the factorisation of polynomial equations - a revelation that opened the door to other theories.
By the time he was 21, he had written a textbook on number theory, Disquisitiones Artihmeticae. The text is widely credited for paving the way for modern number theory as we know it. Among other things, it introduced the symbol for congruence.
His work established him as the era's pre-eminent mathematician.
Gauss summarised his views on the pursuit of knowledge in a letter dated September 2, 1808, as follows:
"It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment. When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into darkness again."
It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment Gauss
Deep depression
Gauss married Johanna Osthoff in 1805 and had two children with her. She died four years later, and the couple's youngest child, Louis, died the year after.
in 1805 and had two children with her. She died four years later, and the couple's youngest child, Louis, died the year after. After his wife's death, Gauss sank into a depression from which he never fully recovered.
In 1810, Gauss married Minna Waldeck, his first wife's best friend, and had three more children with her. She took over the household and cared for him and his family.
Electromechanical telegraph
In 1831, Gauss developed a working relationship with Wilhelm Weber, leading to new knowledge in magnetism and the discovery of Kirchhoff's circuit laws in electricity.
They constructed the first electromechanical telegraph in 1833, and later both founded the "Magnetischer Verein", an observatory which measured the Earth's magnetic field around the world.
The mathematician was made a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science and was also elected a foreign honourary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
During his life, Gauss had excellent health and a strong constitution. He was never seriously ill, but in the last two years, he suffered from insomnia and several other ailments due to his age.
He had a heart attack and died on February 23, 1855, surrounded by relatives and friends.
Gauss's brain was preserved and studied by Rudolf Wagner, who found its mass to be slightly above average. Highly developed convolutions were also found, which in the early 20th century was suggested as an explanation of his genius.
Honours
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauß, one of the most celebrated mathematicians in history, has been honoured in a Google Doodle on what would have been his 241st birthday.
Also known as ‘The Prince of Mathematics’, Johann was a child prodigy and went on to make major contributions to mathematics, geophysics and mechanics.
He was also involved in proving the prime number theorem, discovering the heptadecagon and the quadratic reciprocity law. But who was Johann Carl Friedrich Gauß?
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauß, a celebrated mathematician has been honoured by Google Doodle
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauß biography
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauß was born on April 30, 1777 in Brunswick, what is now part of Lower Saxony in Germany to an illiterate mother.
His mother never recorded his date of birth and one of his first discoveries as a child was working out the day he was born after being told it was on a Wednesday eight days before the Feast of the Ascension.
The child prodigy could add up all the numbers from one to 100 from the age of eight and started to make his first mathematical discoveries as a teenager.
Johann completed his magnum opus, Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, at the age of 21 but it was not published until 1801.
His talent caught the attention of the Duke of Brunswick, who sent Johann to the Collegium Carolinum, now referred to as the Braunschweig University of Technology and then the University of Gottingen.
While at university, he found that a regular polygon can be constructed by ‘compass and straightedge construction’, a problem that had puzzled the Ancient Greeks in 1796.
Proud of this discovery, Johann requested a heptadecagon to be inscribed on his tombstone, but the stonemason refused as the shape was too difficult to carve.
In the same year, he also simplified number theory and proved the quadratic reciprocity law, which helps mathematicians determine the solvability of any quadratic equation.
As well as this, also in 1796, he came up with the prime number theorem and found that every positive integer can be represented as a sum of at most three triangular numbers.
Also known as ‘The Prince of Mathematics’, Johann Carl Friedrich Gauß was a child prodigy and went on to make major contributions to mathematics, geophysics and mechanics
In 1801, in addition to publishing his book and as a result, gaining widespread fame, Johann calculated the orbit of the asteroid Ceres.
After this, in collaboration with Wilhelm Weber, he discovered magnetism and they constructed the first electromechanical telegraph in 1833.
In his old age, Johann remained active, publishing the renowned Dioptrische Untersuchugen and becoming a member of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands.
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauß wife and children
Johann married Johanna Osthoff in October 9, 1805 and the couple had two sons and a daughter. Johanna died on October 11, 1809 and their son, Louis, died the following year.
The mathematician later married Minna Walbeck on August 7, 1810 and had three more children. Minna passed away on September 12, 1831.
One striking anecdote, possibly apocryphal, tells how Gauß was working out a maths problem when he was told his wife was dying.
He is reported to have said: ‘Tell her to wait a moment till I’m done.’
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauß death
Johann died of a heart attack in Gottingen on February 23, 1855 and he is interred at the Albani Cemetery. His brain was preserved and studied by Rudolf Wagner, who found that its mass was above average.
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauß Google Doodle
The Google Doodle for April 30, 2018 celebrates Johann Carl Friedrich Gauß on what would have been his 241st birthday.
The artwork illustrated by Bene Rohlmann shows Johann alongside his much loved heptadecagon.
The Google Doodle for April 30 celebrates Johann on what would have been his 241st birthday
What is a Google Doodle?
Googe Doodles mark events with creative illustrations on the search engine’s homepage and is incorporated into the Google logo.
The first Google Doodle marked Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s visit to the 1998 Burning Man Festival and was a stick-man standing behind the second ‘o’ in the Google logo.
A team of illustrators, graphic designers, animators and artists work on the Google Doodles each day and the logos are hyperlinked to a page that provides more information about the cultural event celebrated.
Recent Google Doodles have celebrated Fanny Blankers-Koen, St George's Day and the anniversary of Israel's independence, Yom Ha'atzmaut.
Soon after the dwarf planet Ceres was discovered in 1801, it was lost. The massive object within the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter had traveled behind the sun, but astronomers hadn’t had a chance to calculate its orbit. Enter Johann Carl Friedrich Gauß (or Gauss), who used math to find the lost Ceres and is honored today with a Google Doodle on what would be his 241st birthday.
Born in 1777 in Germany, Gauss quickly rose to become one of the most prominent mathematicians of his time — and was sometimes called “the prince of mathematics.” As a child, Gauss impressed teachers with his ability to add every single whole number from 1 to 100 in an instant. And by age 24, when he found the lost Ceres, he had already discovered that any 17-sided figure with sides of equal length could be sketched with just a ruler and compass. (This is more significant than it might seem: The discovery rested on some very tricky math uniting algebra and geometry.) He had also completed an impressive doctoral dissertation on a proof of the fundamental theorem of algebra.
The discovery of Ceres was important. Back in the 1500s, Johannes Kepler himself was mystified by the lack of a planet between Mars and Jupiter. The gap was so large, it was said to have “offended Kepler’s sense of proportion.” Ceres helped validate Kepler’s suspicion that there was a planetary body inside that gap.
When Ceres was lost behind the sun, Gauss did some quick math to find it. Giuseppe Piazzi, the Italian monk who discovered Ceres, had only observed it for 41 days before falling ill and losing it in the brightness of the sun. Imagine seeing a tiny sliver of a line and being asked to draw the ellipse that line was a part of — that was the mathematical challenge.
Gauss took it on, writing that the problem of orbiting celestial bodies “commended itself to mathematicians by its difficulty and elegance.” He saw a profound importance in the work of “discovering in the heavens this planetary atom, among innumerable small stars.”
The math here is so tricky because Gauss only had observations of Ceres’s motion in relation to the Earth. To figure out its orbit, he needed to deduce Ceres’s motion in relation to the sun. A 1978 history of Gauss’s work explained what he did:
Gauss worked from the assumption that Ceres’s orbit was elliptical with the Sun at a focus, and used his mathematical skill to calculate six theoretical quantities, or elements. These, in effect, replaced the three observed positions from which they had been derived. However, they had a more general significance; for they uniquely specified the size, shape, and orientation of the orbit in space, from which the celestial position of Ceres in it could be calculated at any past or future time.
French astronomers rediscovered Ceres in January 1802, looking where Gauss predicted it would be.
After his feat with Ceres, Gauss continued to make impressive findings in math, physics, and astronomy. In statistics, he introduced the world to the idea of the normal distribution (the bell curve). And he contributed to research in electricity and magnetism that led to the invention of the telegraph.
Gauss, who died in 1855, was a rare genius who contributed to discoveries both in the skies above and for our everyday lives.
