Carl Friedrich Gauss
Carl Friedrich Gauss
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss; Latin: Carolus Fridericus Gauss)was a German mathematician who contributed significantly to many fields, including number theory, algebra, statistics, analysis, differential geometry, geodesy, geophysics, mechanics, electrostatics, astronomy, matrix theory, and optics...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionMathematician
Date of Birth30 April 1777
CountryGermany
exercise hands order
In my opinion instruction is very purposeless for such individuals who do no want merely to collect a mass of knowledge, but are mainly interested in exercising (training) their own powers. One doesn't need to grasp such a one by the hand and lead him to the goal, but only from time to time give him suggestions, in order that he may reach it himself in the shortest way.
order darkness exhausted
When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into darkness again.
simple order training
As is well known the principle of virtual velocities transforms all statics into a mathematical assignment, and by D'Alembert's principle for dynamics, the latter is again reduced to statics. Although it is is very much in order that in gradual training of science and in the instruction of the individual the easier precedes the more difficult, the simple precedes the more complicated, the special precedes the general, yet the min, once it has arrived at the higher standpoint, demands the reverse process whereby all statics appears only as a very special case of mechanics.
education couple winter
To the distracting occupations belong especially my lecture courses which I am holding this winter for the first time, and which now cost much more of my time than I like. Meanwhile I hope that the second time this expenditure of time will be much less, otherwise I would never be able to reconcile myself to it, even practical (astronomical) work must give far more satisfaction than if one brings up to B a couple more mediocre heads which otherwise would have stopped at A.
believe i-believe
I believe you are more believing in the Bible than I. I am not, and, you are much happier than I.
women sophie world
Sophie Germain proved to the world that even a woman can accomplish something in the most rigorous and abstract of sciences and for that reason would well have deserved an honorary degree.
humility math reality
We must admit with humility that, while number is purely a product of our minds, space has a reality outside our minds, so that we cannot completely prescribe its properties a priori.
mean math two
I mean the word proof not in the sense of the lawyers, who set two half proofs equal to a whole one, but in the sense of a mathematician, where half proof = 0, and it is demanded for proof that every doubt becomes impossible.
lying destiny touching
There are problems to whose solution I would attach an infinitely greater importance than to those of mathematics, for example touching ethics, or our relation to God, or concerning our destiny and our future; but their solution lies wholly beyond us and completely outside the province of science.
teaching university-professors physicians
...as our friend Zach has often noted, in our days those who do the best for astronomy are not the salaried university professors, but so-called dillettanti, physicians, jurists, and so forth.Lamenting the fragmentary time left to a professor has remaining after fulfilling his teaching duties.
queens math arithmetic
Mathematics is the queen of science, and arithmetic the queen of mathematics.
passion numbers study
It is always noteworthy that all those who seriously study this science [the theory of numbers] conceive a sort of passion for it.
beer science young-friends
My young friend, I wish that science would intoxicate you as much as our good Göttingen beer! Upon seeing a student staggering down a street.
mean idaho dignity
Further, the dignity of the science itself seems to require that every possible means be explored for the solution of a problem so elegant and so celebrated.