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| To know more about the figure of the month, go to: www.encarta.com Gauss on Britannica.com |
My choice for this month is Carl Friedrich Gauss(April 30,1777-Feb. 23, 1855). German mathematician who also made great contributions to other sciences.
With Archimedes and Newton, Gauss ranks as one of the greaest mathematicians of all time. At an early age, he overturned the
theories and methods of the 18th-century mathematics and, following his own revolutionary theory of the numbers, opened the way
a mid-19th-century rigorization of analysis. Although he contributed significantly to pure mathematics, he also made pratical applications of importance for the 20th-century astronomy, geodesy, and electromagnetism. His own dictum, "Mathematics, the queen of the sciences, and arithmetic, the queen of mathematics," aptly conveys his perception of the pivotal role of mathematics in science.
Gauss was the only son of poor parents. Impressed by his ability in mathematics and languages, his teachers and his devoted mother recommended him to the Duke of Brunswick, who granted him financial assistance to continue his education in the secondary school and from 1795 to 1798 to study mathematics at the University of Gottigen. In 1799 he obtained his Doctorate in absentia from the university at Helmstedt. The subject of his dissertation was a proof of the fundamental theorem of algebra-which was only proven partially before Gauss-which states that every algebraic equation with complex coefficients has complex solutions; moreover, Gauss skillfully formulated and proved this theorem without the use of complex numbers. Gauss was deeply religious, aristocratic in bearing, and conservative. He remained aloof from the progressive political currents of his time. In Gauss, apparent contrasts were combined in an effective harmony. A brilliant arithmetician with a phenomenal memory for numbers, he was at once a profound theoritician and an outstanding practical mathematician. Teaching was his only aversion, and thus, he had only a few students. |
