carl friedrich gauss
(foldoc) | Carl Friedrich Gauss
A German mathematician (1777 - 1855), one of all time
greatest. Gauss discovered the method of least squares and
Gaussian elimination.
Gauss was something of a child prodigy; the most commonly told
story relates that when he was 10 his teacher, wanting a rest,
told his class to add up all the numbers from 1 to 100. Gauss
did it in seconds, having noticed that 1+...+100 = 100+...+1 =
(101+...+101)/2.
He did important work in almost every area of mathematics.
Such eclecticism is probably impossible today, since further
progress in most areas of mathematics requires much hard
background study.
Some idea of the range of his work can be obtained by noting
the many mathematical terms with "Gauss" in their names. E.g.
Gaussian elimination (linear algebra); Gaussian primes
(number theory); Gaussian distribution (statistics); Gauss
[unit] (electromagnetism); Gaussian curvature (differential
geometry); Gaussian quadrature (numerical analysis);
Gauss-Bonnet formula (differential geometry); {Gauss's
identity} (hypergeometric functions); Gauss sums ({number
theory}).
His favourite area of mathematics was number theory. He
conjectured the Prime Number Theorem, pioneered the {theory
of quadratic forms}, proved the {quadratic reciprocity
theorem}, and much more.
He was "the first mathematician to use complex numbers in a
really confident and scientific way" (Hardy & Wright, chapter
12).
He nearly went into architecture rather than mathematics; what
decided him on mathematics was his proof, at age 18, of the
startling theorem that a regular N-sided polygon can be
constructed with ruler and compasses if and only if N is a
power of 2 times a product of distinct Fermat primes.
(1995-04-10)
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