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Talk:Carl Friedrich Gauss - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Talk:Carl Friedrich Gauss

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Former featured article Carl Friedrich Gauss is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.
Main Page trophy This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on August 4, 2005.
This article has been reviewed by the Version 1.0 Editorial Team.
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A request has been made for this article to be copyedited by the League of Copyeditors. The progress of its reviewers is recorded below. The League is always in need of editors with a good grasp of English to review articles. Visit the Project page if you are interested in helping.
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[edit] Request for move

Since his last name was written with an "ß" and not "ss", I propose to move this article to correct the mistaken "ss". In German language, there are family-names that are written with an "ß", an "ss" would be incorrect, in German or any other language. Gryffindor

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~
  • Support, see above. Gryffindor 23:41, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose this has been discussed before in a section below. Borisblue 00:51, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. As per Borisblue. Mark 01:13, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose, until someone makes a convincing arguement that this is the way that Gauss actually wrote it. Riemann, his student, definitely did not do it, see [1]. On the other hand, he also did not write Grösse with ß which would be correct German today. Edinborgarstefan 01:21, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. As per Borisblue. – Axman (☏) 06:52, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose: article is already at clearest and most common name in English. Jonathunder 06:08, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Keep it at the English name and take 10 points from Gryffindor. Tree&Leaf 16:43, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The question was answered correctly by Michael Hardy (below). (I know this is old stuff by now, but it's so obvious, I can't resist!) Zaslav 20:37, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Has Gryffindor not read through this talk page, if he had he would have found that there are two acceptable spellings of his name in German: Gauss and Gauß. May I add that the English spelling of Gauss is a well-established standard, this is English Wiki after all. Mark 01:13, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Are you mad? Do you have two ways of spelling YOUR name? I guess not. There is always just one acceptable way of spelling names, and the name is definetely Gauß and no other way. every piece of original German literature spells it Guaß, and there has never been a trace of doubt in the German equivalent to this article. And because of the fact that it is a name of a person there is no point to argue about an English version of spelling. The name is simply Gauß and nothing else. Please see the version with ss as a transcription for typewriters that do not support the ß. Note that the famous Bohemian composer is called Antonín Dvořák, not Antonin Dvorak, though there is a redirect from the latter to the former one. And notice that George Bush is de:George Bush as well rather than Georg Busch, which would be the "clearest and most common name" in German. So, there is nothing to discuss about, just move the article to the correct lemma and put a redirect from here to there. Do you think you know it better than the people in Gauß' home country and the Bundesbank? [2] 80.136.200.130 20:23, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

There are several ways to spell my name. "stjohn" is easier for computers than "st john" or "st. john" or "st.john", but "saint john" is easier to alphabetize. This has been a hassle for me my whole life, as we have gone from filing clerks to OCR. The common spelling (or if you prefer, transliteration) in English is "Gauss", and the thing with the letter that I don't know but can be made by people who are better at fonts than I am, can be be a redirect. Pete St.John (talk) 19:47, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Papers in German

I understood that Gauss was the earliest (or the first important) scientist to start writing his papers in his native language (German) rather than Latin, if anyone can confirm whether this is true it would make a useful addition to the page, as eventually this leads to the use of English as the language of science rather than Latin.

No, this isn't the case - most of Gauss' works were written in Latin, such as his 1799 doctoral thesis (proving the fundamental theorem of algebra), and of course, the Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, published in 1801. According to E.T. Bell, Gauss did eventually capitulate to the nationalist mood in post-revolutionary Europe, writing some of his astronomical papers in German, but in any case this was well after Lagrange, who from 1754 was publishing results in both Italian and French (though I don't know whether Lagrange was the first to write maths in vernacular). RMoloney 16:16 Apr1, 2005 (UTC)

This was also well after Galileo's "Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo ," which was published in Italian instead of Latin like "Siderius Nuncius." xlation Aug 5, 2005

This is such a well written article that it seems pedantic to mention, but isn't "he tried in vain ... and failed" tautologous? 81.151.182.255

[edit] Gauss or Gauß

Is it Gauss or Gauß? I still don't know, can someone with deep knowledge of German spellings please step in? -- Jörgen Nixdorf

"carl gauss" leads "carl gauß" 5-to-1 on Google, and "Gauss" is used on many German sites, which suggests keeping "Gauss" as the preferred form for English wikipedia. I see "Gauß" in official names of schools and such, which suggests that the article could use a footnote at least. My old copy of Curme suggests "Gauß", per the rule to use ß after long vowels. Note both spellings appearing on the same page at places like http://www.math.uni-hamburg.de/math/ign/gauss/gaussges.html ... Stan 23:15 Mar 28, 2003 (UTC)
If we were writing this in German maybe this would matter, but this is in English. Michael Hardy 01:40 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Actually spelling rules in Germany have abandoned the 'ß' a few years ago. It is still used by some people(being highly debated), but no longer part of official spelling. I think that applies to names as well. Renke
That's incorrect. It's only Swiss German spelling that abolished the ess-tsett entirely. Prumpf 18:30, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
According to the new spelling rules in Germany, the ess-tsett still remains in names and in most cases after two vowels. Keep the annotation. -- Anonymous 02:26, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I just checked his grave stone, and it quite clearly doesn't use a ligature for the final "ss". I think that's actually the more common spelling in German as well, though it looks unusual according to today's orthographical rules. Prumpf 18:30, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
See Article about capital ß and you will find the reason. 131.220.136.195 12:34, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

German letters are used, in English, when referring to German names. Pizza Puzzle

The spelling "Gauss" is wrong. The correct spelling is "Gauß". The ss-spelling is only used, when no ß-lettre is available. Since this is not the case in Wikipedia, the correct spelling should be used with a redirect from Gauss to Gauß. Stern 20:45, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Additionally, when using upper case lettres, the ß is changed to SS. Therefore GAUSS instead of Gauß can be found in some texts as well. Stern 20:47, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
English usage on the subject, however, is well-established. The English Wikipedia should no more do this than we should have an article on Göthe. (Köthen is a different matter.) Septentrionalis 21:02, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
His name was Goethe not Göthe, but in case of Gauß it is different. Stern 23:50, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

As far as the English spelling is concerned I agree wholeheartedly with Michael Hardy's comment above. As far as the German spelling is concerned either version is correct. The rule is that in the case of surnames the normal spelling rules do not apply. The spelling of surnames is determined by the registry of births, deaths & marriages (Standesamt), see, for example, Duden, 21. Edition (new rules), Verlag Bibliographisches Institut & F.A. Brockhaus AG, Mannheim, 1996, Regelung 91. The registries in both Brunswick, where Gauss was born, and Goettingen, where he died, were therefore approached with a request to provide the official spelling. The reply (personal communication of 26 July 2005) from the registry in Goettingen was to the effect that there is no official version of the name since the registry system only dates from 1876, after Gauss's death. However, the registry official went on to provide the information that Gauss himself used both forms in his writing, and it is not possible to determine whether he preferred one above the other. Incidentally, he also used both "Carl" and "Karl" for his christian name. There is thus no "officially correct" version of the name. The City and the University of Goettingen have decided to use the spellings "Gauß" and "GAUSS" for the celebration of 2005 as the "Gauss year". Kiwerry 12:20, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

P.S. a subsequent reply from the city archive in Brunswick (personal communication of 2 August 2005) revealed that the name is entered as "Johann Friderich Carl Gauss" (unequivocally a double s) in the register of baptisms of the parish of St. Katharinen for the period 1773 to 1790 (Bestandssignatur G III 1:66) on page 173. This definitely supports the "Gauss" version, but in view of the fact that the man himself used both forms, I stand by my view that either version can be used. For the hairsplitters: the evidence (gravestone, see above, and baptism register) shows that "Gauss", not "Gauß" is strictly correct. Kiwerry 10:50, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

The only correct spelling of the name is Gauß. However, the spelling Gauss is allowed on typewriters that do not support the letter ß. Another exception is the case when the Name ist written capitalized, for there is no upper case ß: GAUSS. Therefore, all examples used where the name is written in capitals, are void. Because it is a person's name, there should be no discussion about the spelling which is definetely Gauß. 131.220.136.195 12:29, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
We mention in the lead that "Gauß" is a spelling. Regardless of how the subject spelled his name in his native country, in English-speaking countries he is generally referred to as "Gauss". That's the criterion we should use. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 20:52, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
As I told you, there is only one correct spelling of the name. Something like an "English spelling" is simply bullshit. The fact that the spelling in many English language books is wrong doesn't make it correct. There might be a discussion about spelling of names of towns in foreign countries, but there cannot be any discussion about a person's name. And there is more than enough evidence that the correct spelling is Gauß.131.220.136.195 10:45, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
How do you think Gauss wrote his name? I think he wrote Gauss, his student Riemann did in any case. Please provide a source if you think differently. Stefán 14:35, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
The name the subject called himself is (almost) irrelevant. Wikipedia's naming convention (WP:NC) says:
  • Generally, article naming should prefer what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.
A different naming convention (WP:UE) calls on us to avoid non-Latin characters:
  • Article titles should use the Latin alphabet, not any other alphabets or other writing systems such as syllabaries or Chinese characters. However, any non-Latin-alphabet native name should be given within the first line of the article (with a Latin-alphabet transliteration if the English name does not correspond to a transliteration of the native name). Also, a non-Latin-alphabet redirect could be created to link to the actual Latin-alphabet-titled article.
With those two guidelines the choice of "Gauss" seems obvious. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 18:13, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
It is not at all obvious. First of all Mueller would be the correct spelling for Müller on typewriters that do not support umlauts, though Mueller and Müller are in fact two different names as well as Goethe was not named Göthe. To refer to your anming conventions: following this, the article Lech Wałęsa must be moved to Lech Walesa, because I am pretty sure that that is the spelling "what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize". Other examples should be Gerhard Schröder, Molière or Antonín Dvořák. About your second quotation I am wondering, because it does not apply; Gauß only contains Latin characters. So, the use of Gauss instead of Gauß is not only questionable, it is simply wrong. Because you are ignoring further proof from above, I paste is here: [3]. Or what about a biography from the Georg-August University of Göttingen where he lectured? [4]131.220.136.195 08:14, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
I would like to chime in that the article should remain at "Gauss"- our conventions are clear that the most common english name should be used. If the article on Lech Walesa is in violation of this policy, then it should be changed, not the gauss article. Borisblue 08:42, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
See discussion there. His name is Wałęsa, not Walesa. "Most common english" name is bullshit, the people have a a name with a certain spelling. What would you say, if I call you Börísbłüę because that is the most commen spelling in another language? Or another example: Gdańsk is as correct as Danzig, but Gdansk is completely wrong. What is the most common spelling in English? 131.220.136.195 10:54, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
By the way, I support moving Thomas Häßler to Thomas Hässler, because that is the most common English spelling. :P 80.136.246.253 14:57, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Your sources don't actually address my question at all. Useage of ß was not standardised until the early 20th century. So for Germans born before that time, we can not assume that the name was written with an ß eventhough the equivalent name in modern German would use ß. So, do you have any source saying that Gauss wrote his name as Gauß? Stefán 16:16, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Let's put it the other way around: do you have any proof that he wrote Gauss? Please keep in mind, that Gauss and Gauß are two different German last names, same as Schroeder and Schröder or Mueller and Müller. And keep in mind, that all relevant German sources unanimously use the spelling Gauß. Unfortunately I have not found any signature of Gauß yet, so this proof will have to wait. And keep in mind that originally ß was a ligature of ſ and s, like the word Congreſs in the United States Bill of Rights , rather than a letter on itself. 131.220.136.195 08:13, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
I've not examined the history or authenticity of these particular scans but this final page of correspondence with his son Eugene ends with a signature where the spelling, presumably by Carl, is clearly Gauss. Given the context I would interpret this, at the least, as indicating that Carl himself Anglicised his name as Gauss. Asperal 10:47, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

While they might be using the Euro now, a German 10-mark note from 1991 uses his portrait and the caption "1777-1855 Carl Friedr. Gauß". So, if the German government says it Gauß, who are we to question it. However, this is the English Wiki. So, it's proper to use Gauss as no English keyboard has the funny looking B. I know, I know, some of you REALLY want the name spelled the way Gauss wanted it. But, consider that many English texts use "Gauss." For instance, my Linear Algebra textbook (ISBN: 0-13-145334-3) uses Gauss and the elimination method he devised is called Gauss-Jordan elimination. This book has passed peer review and I'm sure the other textbooks that use Gauss have too. Can't we take a clue from the publishers? --Stephen Eakin (unregistered user)75.202.182.103 04:03, 15 October 2007 (UTC)


It's ridiculous how the man, who was mason's son and did things which every child automaticaly does, is prised and even named as the gratest of all times...or this world just full of stupids?...usualy real genuouses are not understood and fogotten —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.222.112.200 (talk) 14:48, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wantzel's proof

Mathematicians are notoriously incompetent historians. Gauss NEVER gave a proof of the necessity of the constructibility of the regular n-gon. WANTZEL proved this in 1837. If you read otherwise, it's because mathematicians are sloppy historians. Revolver

And if this is true the correct thing to do is to edit the article! Paul Beardsell 18:49, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I did edit the article to make it correct. Look at the page history, several months ago. It originally said that Gauss proved necessity and sufficiency (I'm assuming this is what "completely solved" and "determined all constructible regular polygons" means.) I changed it so that it correctly only attributes sufficiency to Gauss, but does not give him credit for necessity. I didn't feel Wantzel was necessary to mention, because it's an article on Gauss in general, not on constructible numbers, say. Revolver 01:14, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Sorry. Paul Beardsell 02:22, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Land of death

The article mentions that he died in Göttingen, Hanover (now Germany). Shouldn't a link to the land of the death really be Hanover (state), as opposed to linking to the city of Hanover? --Romanm 10:43, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yes. I've fixed the link. --Zundark 10:58, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Tombstone

Gauss was so pleased by this result that he requested that a regular 17-gon be inscribed on his tombstone.

So, why wasn't it? There's a picture at

Image:Gauss-Tombstone.jpg
tombstone

(rather large, so not included), and at least it's not prominently visible.

The stonemason that built his grave stated that its construction would be too complex to effect, and that it would end up looking like a circle. I've edited the page to show this. Liam Bryan 11:40, 2005 Apr 30 (UTC)

Hey, who got the tomstone article? What's its licensing info? Borisblue 09:07, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Logarithms

Shouldn't there be a mention of Gauss' connection between logarithms and primes? Ilyanep 15:52, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree. Gauss's contributions to prime number theory are important. He even has a kind of primes names after him, gaussian primes that have no complex factors. So for example, 3 is a gaussian prime, but 17 is not because (4 + i)(4 - i) = 4^2 - i^2 = 17. Legendre and him were some of the first people to produce a model for the density of prime numbers at a given number. Gauss's was much better, of course. WAS HE A MAN OR A GOD??? --Ignignot 16:38, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)
I think he was man 159.81.192.24 (talk) 14:13, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Normal?

(William M. Connolley 20:06, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)) The article (middle years) says that Gauss used least-squares subject to normal errors. Later on, it says that his geodesy lead to the dev of normal dist. So something is out of order.

[edit] Featured Article?

Seems to me that this article fulfills all conditions for being a FA. I'm putting it on peer review Borisblue 03:47, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Do we need two portraits? I'd say we get rid of the second one, since it has no caption and thus may interfere with the FAC. Borisblue 10:23, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Braunschweig or Brunswick?

Why do we mention Gauss' birthplace as braunschweig, but we call duke ferdinand the duke of brunswick? It should be standardized, shouldn't it? Borisblue 03:23, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Braunschweig is the german name, Brunswick the english one. But, today it is not unusual not use the english translation of place names which was very common formerly. Stern 23:54, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
Brunswick used to be the English name, but today the common version is Braunschweig. Brunswick should not be used any longer. I would appreciate to change Brunswick into Braunschweig. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.70.75.131 (talk) 02:36, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Audible?

The article has some readability quirks. It needs to be looked over for repetitions. For some reason the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg is called "now part of lower saxony, germany" in parens twice. Triangular numbers symbolized by delta? Should that be pronounced "delta delta delta" or "triangle triangle triangle"? I also like day, month, year better than month, day, year but perhaps that is frivolous style. Wikipedia does not seem to define what the factors of a polygon are. DanielHolth 1 July 2005 21:05 (UTC)

The triangle thing is what he wrote in his diary after discovering that theorem. I've tried to clear up the confusion. Is it good enough for you to vote Gauss for FAC now? pretty please? Borisblue 2 July 2005 11:35 (UTC)

Somebody left this in... "Gauss had been asked in the late 1810s <we said 1818, PlanetMath says 1816. Which is correct?--> to carry out a geodetic survey of the state of Hanover to link up with the"

Erk, I messed up the comment tags, sorry about that. Fixed now. — Matt Crypto 17:19, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The intro

I just made some major changes to the introductory paragraph. They may or may not be appropriate. I know nothing about Gauss, and very little about mathematics, so I'm just looking at matters of style and readability. I don't think I've changed the meaning of the text too much, but someone with expertise in the field will need to look my changes over.

The next two short paras, it seems to me, ought to go further down in the main body of the article somewhere. (The ones starting with "Gauss was a child prodigy" and "thanks to the patronage of the Duke of Brunswick".) Tannin 5 July 2005 10:11 (UTC)

  • Looks good to me Borisblue 5 July 2005 14:26 (UTC)

[edit] Regular Polygons

"...his breakthrough occurred in 1796 when he was able to show that any regular polygon, each of whose odd factors are distinct Fermat primes, can be constructed by ruler and compass. This was a major discovery in an important field of mathematics..."

If I'm not mistaken, Gauss' result was that a regular polygon can be constructed with ruler and compass IF AND ONLY IF the odd factors of the number of sides are distinct Fermat Primes. I think the ONLY IF is even more important than the IF part that is mentioned in the text. Mharo 3 August 2005 19:13 (UTC)

corrected Borisblue 10:36, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
oops, I'll have to revert my correction. Read the talk page section above "Wantzel's proof". Gauss never proved "only if".Borisblue 10:43, 4 August 2005 (UTC)


Unfortunately the text as stated at this moment is nonsensical:

his breakthrough occurred in 1796 when he was able to show that any regular polygon, each of whose odd factors are distinct Fermat primes, can be constructed by ruler and compass.

A polygon does not have any factors.

I suspect I know what was intended with the text, but since there the statement has already been thru some iterations, I prefer to request that Borisblue or Mharo pls make the correction. --Philopedia 16:40, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Real world is Euclidean?

This sentence is misleading: Euclidean geometry isn't even true in the "real" universe. No physics is true in the real universe. Could you rephrase? or delete. --pippo2001 03:34, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

rephrased Borisblue 10:41, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Good article. Short? Brain convolutions.

Thanks to those who've worked on this, it's well-written. My only thought is that it's a surprisingly short (compare other recent Featured Articles, e.g. John Vanbrugh), particularly for a maths giant like Gauss. Perhaps some brief elaboration on his actual mathematics could be added (there's only one formula in the entire article!)? Also, "There were also found highly developed convolutions, which in the early 20th century was suggested as the explanation of his genius." — I'm guessing that nowadays there is believed to be no link between convolutions and genius; if so, that could do with being made explicit. — Matt Crypto

I think a better comparison would be Blaise Pascal, and it is about the same length. To tell you the truth, I'm not a fan of really long articles; maybe this has something to do with my short attention span :) Feel free to add any math as you feel necessary, although IMHO all of his mathematical contributions are adequately covered. Borisblue 08:07, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Every integer?

The article states, "Gauss also discovered that every integer is representable as a sum of at most three triangular numbers...." Shouldn't this be, "...every positive integer...?" EJFischer 06:19, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

corrected. Thanks! But this is really something that you should have corrected yourself- see WP:BBBorisblue 14:14, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Citation error

There appears to be an error with the first citation in the article ("While the story is mostly true, the problem assigned by Gauss's teacher was actually a more difficult one..."). The citation link leads to an article about why there is no nobel prize in mathematics. It doesn't appear to have anything to do with the aforementioned math problem.

From the article linked: Most mathematicians who teach will assert that the problem given to Gauss by his tyrannical school teacher was to sum the integers from 1 to 1OO. In fact, Gauss was given a more difficult problem "of the following sort, 81297 + 81495 + 81693 +... + lOO899, where the step from one number to the next is the same all along (here 198), and a given number of terms (here 1OO) are to be added." (p. 221 of E.T. Bell's Men of Mathematics, 1937). Stefán Ingi 16:11, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
I didn't find any reference to this topic in the article. I think it deserves to be included since we have a citation. WilliamKF 03:57, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fundamental theorem of algebra

In fundamental theorem on algebra it is stated, correctly, that Gauss' proof was incomplete (it used topological assumptions). Shouldn't the current formulation be changed accordingly? 132.68.13.226 04:49, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

That's funny, I just ran across this article and noticed that myself! Anyway, I just changed it (before I even read your message). --C S (Talk) 07:29, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] first electric telegraph?

it says in this article that the first electric telegraph was by gauss & weber in 1833, but this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_telegraph says that it was baron schilling in 1832. can someone update whichever article is incorrect?

[edit] other great mathematicians

The intro said: "and is ranked beside Euler, Newton and Archimedes as one of history's greatest mathematicians." I think such lists are problematic. Why Euler and Newton but not Leibniz and other great mathematicians? Reeks a bit of POV. I will mention that Gauss has been called the greatest mathematician since antiquity, and add Leibniz, but actually I think the other scientists should get deleted from the intro, otherwise the next question will be: why not add Madhava? why not ...? Science History 14:41, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Because Gauss gave a list of three great mathematicians: Archimedes, Newton, and Eisenstein. Septentrionalis 17:00, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
I know, but then we'd have to add Eisenstein! Some think Gauss made a joke there... Science History 11:55, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

The adjective in the introduction, presumably as a consequence of intervening edits, is now "influential." Considering how little is known about Madhava's possible influence on early modern mathematics in Europe, I'm afraid his presence in that list has been rendered egregious and puzzling. With due respect to his actual achievements (as opposed to influence), I'm deleting him. cosh 10:40, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] date conflict

According to this page, Gauss invented modular arithmetic in 1796. On the page modular arithmetic, it says he came up with it in his book in 1801. This page agrees with the modular arithmetic page, but I don't have the time now to edit it. Xiong Chiamiov :: contact :: 00:55, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

He did invent it in 1796; but he did not publish it until 1801. Fumblebruschi 20:19, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
Ah, I come upon another question. In the section entitled "The Middle Years", this sentence is found: "Though Gauss had up to this point been supported by the stipend from the Duke..." Who is "the Duke"? I could not find any trace of a Duke in earlier portions of the article. Xiong Chiamiov :: contact :: 01:09, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
"Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi discovered the planetoid Ceres, but could only watch it for a few days." and "Piazzi had only been able to track Ceres for a couple of months, following it for three degrees across the night sky." Xiong Chiamiov :: contact :: 01:11, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures

Just wondering if its me or does the main picture of Gauss look like a mirror image of the picture on the currency? PAR 20:04, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's where they got the 10 mark image from. Borisblue 20:16, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

The one on the currency - why would they flip it around, make it a mirror image instead of the original? Or has the main image been flipped around? PAR 02:06, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

The German mark notes all had the pictures on the right hand side, with the same orientation. I assume that the Gauss picture was flipped for the bill.

[edit] Missing info?

Interestingly enough, there is no mention in the article about Gauss's Law, or his work surrounding electricity? Titoxd(?!?) 05:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cultural depictions of Carl Friedrich Gauss

I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information. I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list. Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article. Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this approach as a model for the editors here. Regards, Durova 16:01, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quadratic reciprocity

The article said "His famous quadratic reciprocity law was discovered on April 8.". But I don't think he discovered QR, in fact I think Legendre was the discoverer. (example: http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~hb3/rchrono.html) So I'm updating the article. A5 20:51, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Legendre only proved a special case- I'm rewording that section. Borisblue 03:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Curvature (intrinsic vs. embedded)

uh3t here: Discussion guidelines suggested to use the "add a comment" feature, but there's no such link that I could find, so I'm directly editing the last topic in the discussion/talk page. Some expert please make a section for this, and fix my non-formatting: The article says:

 "Informally, the theorem
  says that the curvature of a surface can be determined entirely by
  measuring angles and distances on the surface; that is, curvature does
  not depend on how the surface might be embedded in (3-dimensional)
  space."

This seems not quite correct. Intrinsic curvature of a topology (positive, negative, or flat) and curvature of a face of a surface as it's embedded in a larger space (convex, concave, or flat) are two entirely different concepts. It's nice that Gauss recognized the existance of intrinsic curvature as distict from embedded-surface-face curvature. But intrinsic curvature does *not* entirely determine embedded curvature, it merely limits the options:

  • Intrinsic flat: Can be embedded-flat, or concave on one face and convex on the other face except along one axis where it's flat, like the surface of a cylinder which is flat parallel to axis and curved in any other direction.
  • Intrinsic negative (saddle): Normally is flat tangetially to two intersecting lines, concave on one face in two opposite quadrants, and concave on the other face in the other two opposing quadrants. But it can be more complicated, with more than two intersecting lines of zero embedded curvature.
  • Intrinsic positive (sphere): Normally it's convex on one face and concave the other face, but I'm not sure if more complicated combinations are possible.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 198.144.192.42 (talk) 23:31, 14 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] I have added some links to a video Podcast and they were remove

Hi everyone I have added some links to a video podcast that I own. I think they are a nice addition to wikipedia please look at them and express you oppinion here , judge for yourself if the links are really useful or not to wikipedia.

If any of you think they are valuable to wikipedia then feel free to add them back in the external links.

Regards SilentVoice 03:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Political and Religious Views

Since Gauss's importance historically was as a mathematician and astronomer I don't think that anyone reading this article cares about what his opinions on politics and religion were. Therefore the sentence "Gauss was deeply religious and conservative. He supported monarchy and opposed Napoleon whom he saw as an outgrowth of revolution" should be deleted in my opinion. Does anyone else agree with me. NikolaiLobachevsky 0:8:47:25, 2/11/2007 (UTC)

Yes, I disagree with you. This is a biography and so it should summarize the subject's life. If something was important to him then it should be mentioned, even if it might not be of obvious interest to readers. -Will Beback · † · 20:32, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

But this is an encyclopedia biography. In a book about Gauss of course this should be mentioned but it is not relevant to the big picture which is what an encyclopedia is supposed to cover. Prb4 02:54, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

We don't go into much detail on the topic, so it hardly detracts from the bio. We cover a lot of information which is less important to the big picture. Scientists do have political, religious, and social interests too. -Will Beback · † · 19:21, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
A short paragraph on his personal views aren't out of place, and in fact omitting them entirely might mean that the article isn't comprehensive. It also makes the article more interesting to non-specialists. At least this was the feedback I got from this article's FAC, that's why I put that paragraph in. Borisblue 00:26, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pesach and Easter work

I see no mention, in Talk or Article, of Gauss's work on date formulae for Easter and for Pesach.

For Easter, a link into the Wikipedia Computus page would suffice.

I've found no mention in Wikipedia of the Gauss Pesach formula; Google finds about 290 references for those three words.

Note that in at least one case the original formula may have been imperfect.

I think there should be added some topics named after gauss to the list of topics named after him. he was also the first to think about knot theory and provided the gaussian linking integral. he also invented algorithms for computing pi, made some important contributions to the calculus and analysyz which are not mentioned here, and invented 2 primility tests and some instruments which are not mentioned (and some more things). He had also other interests (except of math and science) which are not mentioned. So for the completeness of the list, please add these things.

[edit] Gauss' Family Life

In reading a bit of [i]Carl Fredrich Gauss: Titan of Science[/i] by Dunnington I noticed that on P. 101 (page 2 of ch. 9) Dunnington mentions that "The engagement (April 1, 1810) was put to a hard test, but eventually the marriage proved to be a very happy one." Which certainly contradicts the statement in the wiki article "[The second marriage] did not seem to be very happy." (quote may be paraphrased). I'm not going to make the edit to the article as I can't be certian Dunnington's work was correct in this manner... is there more a more reliable collaboration of the statement in the Gauss article?

82.163.24.100 21:09, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Not notable. Michaelbusch 21:12, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Accuracy Regarding Children

This wiki article states that he had 6 children, three to each wife.

At <http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Gauss.html> there is the following statement. "Gauss arrived in Göttingen in late 1807. In 1808 his father died, and a year later Gauss's wife Johanna died after giving birth to their second son, who was to die soon after her." If this is true, a third son is not possible. If someone could verify the information on the wiki article and provide a source, that would be good. 69.204.164.119 03:11, 11 June 2007 (UTC)eat2thepieseye

How is this inconsistent with Son, Daughter, Son birthorder? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:24, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Righteous stamp?

Germany issued a righteous stamp...

What is meant here? Is this a translation error for "vertical". or what? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:24, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Possibly a horribly bad translation of "Dauermarke". There are two kinds of postage stamps in Germany. A "Sondermarke" is usually bigger and more colourful, and only valid for a short amount of time. A "Dauermarke" has a standard size and is part of a series of similar stamps of different values and colours. Being on one of them is obviously more honourable, since almost everybody uses them, and often they are in use for many years.
In any case the information about the stamps is dubious. According to the German article, one of the 1977 stamps was in East Germany, the others in West Germany. This article has irrelevant numbers (what is the numbering system???) but doesn't even mention that the stamps were actually issued in different countries. I am not going to pursue this, but you could also ask (in English) on the discussion page for the German article. --Hans Adler (talk) 14:29, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Gauss-10DM.jpg

Image:Gauss-10DM.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 20:45, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I put a different tag which seems more appropriate.
Public domain This image is in the public domain according to German copyright law because it is part of a statute, ordinance, official decree or judgment (official work) issued by a German federal or state authority or court (§ 5 Abs.1 UrhG).

--CSvBibra (talk) 23:02, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Some

Gauss seems to have made some contribution to the discovery of quaternions, but did not publish or develop the discovery. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.139.51.112 (talk) 12:31, 26 March 2008 (UTC)


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