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9 unusual facts about Carl Friedrich Gauss


Chess puzzle

Many famous mathematicians have studied such problems, including Euler, Legendre, and Gauss.

Compass-and-straightedge construction

Probably Gauss first realized this, and used it to prove the impossibility of some constructions; only much later did Hilbert find a complete set of axioms for geometry.

Carl Friedrich Gauss in 1796 showed that a regular n-sided polygon can be constructed with straightedge and compass if the odd prime factors of n are distinct Fermat primes.

Eladio Dieste

A particular innovation was his Gaussian vault, a thin-shell structure for roofs in single-thickness brick, that derives its stiffness and strength from a double curvature catenary arch form that resists buckling failure.

Gauss Glacier

It was named by the New Zealand Geographic Board in 1993 after the German mathematician and astronomer Carl Friedrich Gauss.

Gaussberg

Discovered in February 1902 by the German Antarctic Expedition under Erich von Drygalski, who named it as his expedition ship in honour of Carl Friedrich Gauss.

Genius

Galton's theories were elaborated from the work of two early 19th-century pioneers in statistics: Carl Friedrich Gauss and Adolphe Quetelet.

Haußelberg

In 1820 King George IV of England tasked the Professor of Astronomy and Director of the Observatory at Göttingen University, Carl Friedrich Gauss, to survey the Kingdom of Hanover.

Mathematical chess problem

Many famous mathematicians studied mathematical chess problems, for example, Euler, Legendre and Gauss.


Alternatives to general relativity

At the end of the 19th century, many tried to combine Newton's force law with the established laws of electrodynamics, like those of Weber, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Bernhard Riemann and James Clerk Maxwell.

Braunschweig University of Technology

Current and former members of the TU Braunschweig include mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, Nobel Laureate Klaus von Klitzing, SAP-CEO Professor Henning Kagermann, truck engineer and entrepreneur Heinrich Büssing of Büssing AG, as well as renowned architect Meinhard von Gerkan.

G. Waldo Dunnington

Guy Waldo Dunnington (January 15, 1906, Bowling Green, Missouri – April 10, 1974, Natchitoches, Louisiana) was a writer, historian and professor of German known for his writings on the famous German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss.

Measuring the World

The novel re-imagines the lives of German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss and German geographer Alexander von Humboldt – who was accompanied on his journeys by Aimé Bonpland – and their many groundbreaking ways of taking the world's measure, as well as Humboldt's and Bonpland's travels in America and their meeting in 1828.


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