Perspective in Mathematics Carl Friedrich Gauss

It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment. Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777 - 1855) German mathematician and astronomer. Letter to Farkas Bolyai

1. History of Mathematician Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss was born in Brunswick, Germany on April 30 1777 to poor, working-class parents. His father works as gardener and also a brick-layer. Despite the impoverished living, his father was regarded as an upright and honest man. However, his father expectation for Gauss is that he would one day inherit and continue one of the family trades, thus oppose the idea of sending the young lad to get an education. Lucky for Gauss that his mother and uncle Friedrich noticed his brilliance from the very young age and knew he needed to nurture Gausss gifted brains with a proper schooling. At the age of 10, he already show his excellent mathematics skills when they were given a task by their schoolmaster. They were asked to write down all the whole numbers from 1 to 100 and add up its sum. The schoolmaster expects that his young students would probably take some time before theyre able to figure the task out. However, shortly after that Gauss came forward and hand in his slate which was only followed much later by his other classmates. At the end of the lesson, each of the slate was examined with most of them got the answer wrongly. And when the Gausss slate examined, much to the schoolmasters surprise, Gauss only write one figure, 5050.
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Perspective in Mathematics Carl Friedrich Gauss He then explained that he discovered the result when he noticed that 1+100=101, 2+99=101, 3+98=101 so he could find 50 pairs of number that can each add up to 101. As a result, 50 times 101 will yields 5050. At the age of fourteen, the Duke of Brunswick at the time, Carl Wilhelm Ferdinand was so impressed with Gausss intelligence that he willingly guaranteed Gausss financial if he were to continue his studies at the Collegium Carolinum (now known as University of Braunschweig Institute of Technology.). So starting from 1792 until 1795, Gauss further his studies and had the Duke of Brunswick as his benefactor. At the end of his college years, he made a remarkable discovery that up to this day, still believed as impossible by mathematicians. He found a way to build a regular polygon with 17 sides, with only aided by a compass and a straight edge. He was so thrilled with the discovery that he gave up his intention to study languages and turned to mathematics instead.

Even after moved to University of Gottingen to further his study, the Duke of Brunswick was still financially support him until Carl Wilhelm Ferdinand died on November 10, 1806, after mortally wounded during the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt against Napoleons marshal, Davout. Gauss died in Gttingen, Hannover (now part of Lower Saxony, Germany) in 1855 and is interred in the cemetery Albanifriedhof there. Two individuals gave eulogies at his funeral, Gauss's
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Perspective in Mathematics Carl Friedrich Gauss son-in-law Heinrich Ewald and Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen, who was Gauss's close friend and biographer. 2. Reasons for choosing the mathematician Through the pages of history in mathematical community, Gauss is said was a hardworking person and really stress on producing a perfect work. He was known as having a personal motto of, pauca sed matura, which means few, but ripe. He would refuse to publish any of his work that he did not consider as complete and above criticism. This shows that Gauss is perfect example especially for those in mathematics field, to encourage them to continuously improving their performance and being persistent in solving any problem in hand. Besides, were being told that since the age of three, Gauss intelligence was apparent when he corrected his fathers financial calculation without any flaw. However, for peoples in the mathematics field, this can be perceived as another encouragement that while an innate talent is important and not to mention a very huge advantage for those who possess them, a proper schooling is also critical in order to nurture the talent gifted. And without a continuous effort and passion, great talent will never benefit its bearer, let alone the society at large. 3. Important events in mathematicians life As mentioned before, from 1792 until 1795 Gauss attended Collegium Carolinum to further his study by a financial support from the Duke of Brunswick, Carl Wilhelm Ferdinand. His formal education was continued in University of Gottingen from 1795 until 1798. In 1799, he secured his doctorate in absentia from the University of Helmstedt.

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Perspective in Mathematics Carl Friedrich Gauss He then published his first book, Disquisitiones Arithmeticae (Arithmetical Investigations) which was the fundamental in consolidating number theory as a discipline and has shaped the field to the present day. In December 1801, the news about astronomical investigation on the location of planetoid Ceres, which was believed as a small planet at the time, had reached him. Gauss whom at the time is a mathematician, carry out his own investigation using a mathematical technique, which nowadays known as a Gaussian Elimination method, to compute then predict the location of Ceres. A year later, Ceres appears at the exact location he had predicted. Following his yet another discovery, Gauss come to acquaintance with Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers, an astronomer who had discovered a number of astronomical breakthroughs. He requested Gauss to become the director of newly-proposed observatory in Gottingen but no further action was taken at the time. In October 1805, Gauss was married to Johanna Ostoff but despite his tremendous joy, his long-time friend and benefactor, Carl Wilhelm Ferdinand had died in the battle against the Napoleon. In 1807, Gauss left Brunswick for Gottingen and took up the position he was offered years before as a director of the Gottingen observatory. However, he lost his father the following year and also his wife a year after his fathers death. His wife Johanna had died in childbirth and soon followed was the death of his son, Louis. Gauss was devastated after his loss, and ask Olbers to give him a home for a few weeks. Even though Gauss married again for the second time to Minna, the best friend of his late wife a year later, it was a rather a convenience marriage for him. In 1809 he published his second book, Theoria motus corporum coelestium in sectionibus conicis Solem ambientium. In 1821, he was made a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1822 Gauss had won the
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Perspective in Mathematics Carl Friedrich Gauss Copenhagen University Prize. Fifty years after his doctorate granted, Gauss delivered his golden jubilee lecture which was a combination of various of his dissertation in 1799. 4. Mathematician accomplishment in Mathematics Throughout his life, Gauss had made numerous accomplishments in a field of mathematics as well as in other field such as astronomy. He had published many writings which evolve around mathematics and is still used up until today. At the age of 24, Gauss published his first great work, Disquisitiones Arithmeticae which is regarded today as one of the most influential books written in mathematics discipline. He together with Weber had discovered Kirchhoffs Law in 1832 as well as building a primitive telegraph device which could send messages over a distance of 5000 ft. In relation to his great discovery in his college years, Gauss developed a way to determine whether a regular polygon with a given number of sides could be geometrically constructed using a compass and a straight edge. This achievement was the first progress in this area since Euclid (c. 330-260 B.C.), who lived 2,000 years earlier. One of the most significant accomplishment of Gauss was the development of the Gaussian Elimination method, a mathematics technique that was used in computing the location of planetoid Ceres in 1801 from a limited data. In mathematics, this method is used to solve a linear equation system to obtain the value of the unknowns. The Elementary Row Operation is used and the operations are as below; i. ii. Interchanging any two of the rows Multiply a row by a non-scalar constant
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Perspective in Mathematics Carl Friedrich Gauss iii. Add the product of non-zero constant and a row to another row

The main goal of the Gaussian Elimination is to convert the matrix in an augmented form into a row echelon form. So given the matrix in an augmented form as below;

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Perspective in Mathematics Carl Friedrich Gauss So we have obtained the matrix in a row echelon form after a series of elementary row operations. This form can further be converted into reduced row echelon form by performing the Gauss-Jordan Elimination method which was popularized by the German engineer Wilhelm Jordan. Gauss had been asked in 1818 to carry out a geodesic survey of the state of Hanover to link up with the existing Danish grid. Gauss was pleased to accept and took personal charge of the survey, making measurements during the day and reducing them at night, using his extraordinary mental capacity for calculations. He regularly wrote to Schumacher, Olbers and Bessel, reporting on his progress and discussing problems. Because of the survey, Gauss invented the heliotrope which worked by reflecting the Sun's rays using a design of mirrors and a small telescope. However, inaccurate base lines were used for the survey and an unsatisfactory network of triangles. Gauss often wondered if he would have been better advised to have pursued some other occupation but he published over 70 papers between 1820 and 1830.
5. Interesting facts about Carl Friedrich Gauss

Among the interesting part of Carl Friedrich Gauss is that, he did not like to give public lectures. He hated it when he had to give lectures at university and it is said that he only attended a single scientific conference. He also considered as a prince of mathematicians. It also reported that Gauss was a humorous person for he is said to still able to joke when a messenger came to him to inform about his wifes death. According to Walter Kaufmann Bhler through his correspondence with Rudolf Wagner, Gauss did not appear to believe in a personal god. He further asserts that
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Perspective in Mathematics Carl Friedrich Gauss although Gauss firmly believed in the immortality of the soul and in some sort of life after death, it was not in a fashion that could be interpreted as Christian. A result from the study on his brain by Rudolf Wagner found that its mass to be 1,492 grams and the cerebral area equal to 219,588 square millimeters (340.362 square inches). Highly developed convolutions were also found, which in the early 20th century was suggested as the explanation of his genius.

Reference
1. Howard Anton, C. R. (2011). Elementary Linear Algebra 10th Edition. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons Inc. 2. "Gauss, Carl Friedrich," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnalls Corporation. 3. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Gauss.html 4. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Extras/Gauss_Disquisitiones.html

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