Talk:Carl Friedrich Gauss/Archive 1

Archive 1

Order of middle names

Britannica states that his full original name is Johann Friedrich Carl Gauss, the article however interchanges Friedrich & Carl —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.174.249.158 (talk) 20:07, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

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 You're quite simply wrong. Go away. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.163.65.143 (talk) 09:10, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

---

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)
  • That is perhaps the funniest comment I have had the pleasure of reading on all of Wikipedia. β i ι ι γ τ r ο υ § ε r § (talk) 15:40, 2 May 2008 (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)

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)

"Gauss" is an acceptable GERMAN rendering of the name, in the same way the "Goettingen" is an acceptable GERMAN rendering of the place-name. Any mildly retarded high-school German student knows this. Go away. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.163.65.143 (talk) 09:14, 10 July 2008 (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)

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.

That line of reasoning has always work out great in the past, hasn't 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)

You mean like you? Are you saying he was one of Mason's Children?

As already mentioned, WP:NC#Use_English_words states that the article should be named in English, unless the native form is more commonly recognized by readers. Since it seems to be ambiguous here, it should remain in English. --Feyrauth (talk) 14:26, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

"Gauss" is not English, it's just sloppy. His name was "Gauß" and "ß" is a letter of the Latin alphabet used in this language version of Wikipedia, as is "ö" in Gerhard Schröder. 92.231.221.198 (talk) 21:31, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Gauß himself spelled his name "Gauß". How could he be wrong? Names like Josef Weiß and Renate Künast are not transliterated in Wikipedia. Why should Gauß's name be transliterated? No special treatment for Gauß! 85.179.76.249 (talk) 06:09, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

He used both forms, as has already been noted both in this discussion as well as below at Talk:Carl Friedrich Gauss#Gauß!. — Myasuda (talk) 15:07, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

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)

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)

YOU ARE CORRECT -KaylaClark — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.193.151.173 (talk) 18:23, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

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

File: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)

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)

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.

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)

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)

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)

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)

• The paragraph starting with "Gauss was a child prodigy..." is repeated in the intro and in the Early Years - want to keep just one copy of that paragraph? Lanem (talk) 08:28, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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.

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)

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)

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)

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).

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.

• [5] Video PodCast by http://www.isallaboutmath.com/

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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.

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

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) Gauss seems to have made some contribution to magnetism, also. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.155.22.206 (talk) 12:07, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Gauss brain area - an error ?

While passing by, I found it distracting that his "cerebral area equal to 219,588 square centimeters (236.363 square feet)", in Carl Friedrich Gauss#Later years and death (1831–1855). This is a VERY large area. Quick Google search suggest a typical "surface area" of 2,500 cm2, so it is not a three order-of-magnitude conversion error due to different meanings of comma and period in some EU and US nomenclature, which I first suspected. Nowhere on Wiki or Google I can find any (readily accessible) definition of what brain "area" is actually measured. Perhaps this should be checked in the orig ref again. It would also be useful with a precision of what "area" is measured. Power.corrupts (talk) 09:38, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

From Google Books: [6]. This excerpt says that more than the exposed surface was measured. — Myasuda (talk) 12:31, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. I searched a little further and found Maassbestimmungen der Oberfläche des grossen Gehirns: Ein Appendix zu ... By Hermann Wagner, Rudolph Wagner (1864)". [7]. Searching for the string: "gauss brain 219,588" I find the quoted unit is "Mm" (probably archaic for milimeters, or perhaps even better: mm2), which gives a two-orders of magnitude error - 2,196 cm2 - much closer to the average 2,500 cm2. So this would indeed appear to be an error. Are there any better sources? Power.corrupts (talk) 14:20, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Looked once more and found: Donaldson, Henry H. (1891). "Anatomical Observations on the Brain and Several Sense-Organs of the Blind Deaf-Mute, Laura Dewey Bridgman". The American Journal of Psychology. 4 (2). E. C. Sanford: 248–294. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)), which says: "Gauss, 1492 grm. 957 grm. 219588. sq. mm. ", i.e the unit is square mm. I also found the first G. Waldo Dunnington (1927) reference here [8], which was transcribed to softcopy by Susan D. Chambless, June, 2000 - it does report the unit as square centimeters. As this is an unreasonably large area, and in contradiction with the two earlier references that report square mm, it is evidently an error, . Quite stimulating exercise, the flawed square centimiters unit is all over the internet, I'm surprised there are so many Wiki clones. I'm still puzzled what sort of area is actually measured though, in particular if (and how) the area of the brain folds are included, without this info the number seems to provide little information content. Power.corrupts (talk) 08:29, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Died in Hanover or Hannover?

You've got the German spelling, Braunschweig, for where he was born, and the British spelling, Hanover, for where he died. Some consistancy one way or the other is required, I think. I'm going with Hannover, but feel free to revert to Brunswick if you don't mind restarting that discussion!--JO 24 (talk) 23:11, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Now I see the problem. The nice blue Hanover becomes an ugly red Hannover which doesn't point anywhere. Oh well.--JO 24 (talk) 23:29, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Plain text references

Section Early years (1777–1798) contains several references in plain text. Whoever added them should use proper wiki syntax. --Marozols (talk) 01:26, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

• It was copied and pasted from somewhere in revision http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Carl_Friedrich_Gauss&oldid=280165681. I'm guessing from another language version of wiki? Until we find the source, we can't know what the citations refer to. --Feyrauth (talk) 16:12, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Found them in history and restoredJ8079s (talk) 23:15, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
    • on the second try I think J8079s (talk) 00:11, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

1831

Gauss seems to have done some work on sphere-packing in 1831. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.155.232.51 (talk) 09:09, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Religion

I've put a citation needed on the religion of Lutheran as {{infobox scientist}} says this should only be entered if the religion is not, merely nominal. If his religious views were documented as deeply held as said somewhere above then the place that is said should be cited. Dmcq (talk) 09:52, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I removed the religion field entirely as the subject is not known for being religious. There has been much discussion on the infobox talk page as to whether this field should be dropped altogether and I gather that the consensus is that it can be used, but only with discretion. The field would be appropriate for someone like Maria Gaetana Agnesi who gave up math to become a nun, but in the vast majority of cases the information in not encyclopedic for a mathematician.

Gaussian Proportions?

The movie 'Sneakers' has a fun scene where a mathematician is talking about cryptography and says, "This would be a breakthrough of *Gaussian* proportions." Mathematician Len Adleman (the A in RSA encryption) was the "mathematical consultant" for the film. Is this related enough to deserve a mention and a link to Adelman's article? Mctmike (talk) 22:57, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Gauss is the most skilled mathmetician who ever lived

that's a point of opinion which shouldn't be in an encylopedia, i'm sorry. i just thought i would point this out. you have euclid, newton & liebnitz, riemann, and finally hilbert. but seriously, gauss was mathematically the most brilliant human who has ever lived. i studied math once, and saw a theorem in number theory that he had done that was like so far removed from what anyone would even THINK they were looking at it and was the most impressive piece of mathematics i have ever seen in my life. what he did was essentially procedural. gauss could solve a puzzle in a way that was like a brick dropped from the heavens onto your head. i don't think a person like that is even in the business of making "breakthroughs" or "paradigm shifts". he just played the game as it was presented to him with a level of otherworldly mastery that is unequalled anywhere else in the history of mathematics. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Reetside (talk • contribs) 07:12, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Non-Euclidean Geometry

This article, without citation, asserts strongly that Gauss was the first person to develop non-Euclidean geometry. In fact, the article doesn't even mention Lobachevsky, who is often attributed with this development. Moreover, Lobachevsky's article asserts that it was Lobachevsky and not Gauss who developed non-Euclidean geometry. This is inconsistent. One of them needs to be changed and there needs to be some citation.Ckhenderson (talk) 19:28, 20 May 2010 (UTC)Ckhenderson

Ceres

The story of his determination of Ceres's orbit is now told twice ... —Tamfang (talk) 23:17, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Gauss' mathematical contributions

The article lacks a section that summarizes Gauss' mathematical contributions. Currently it has the appearance of a standard biography of a politician or poet. He is indeed described as one of the most influential mathematicians ever, however it is difficult for a person not well versed in mathematics to understand the reasons why he is so celebrated. I would suggest the creation of a section entitled "Scientific Contributions". It should also be added the fact that he is considered by many to be one of the three greatest mathematicians that ever lived, as per comments from Eric Bell (Men of Mathematics) and Felix Klein (Development of Mathematics in the Nineteenth Century). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ffel (talk • contribs) 13:51, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

There's List of topics named after Carl Friedrich Gauss which gives an indication of his work. I don't think we need go down the spaceflight produced the non-stick pan path about him saying things people can grasp even though they are ignorant of maths. Clear and straightforward prose is all that can be expected without bowdlerizing his achievements. Dmcq (talk) 12:44, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Euler's article has a topic entitled "Contributions to mathematics and physics", which has exactly the same purpose I am talking about. That article also has a "List of Topics named after Euler". I guess the great Gauss deserves a similar treatment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.48.222.62 (talk) 13:22, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Gauß!

Since "ß" is a letter of the Latin alphabet, though not used in English, there is no reason to misspell his name using "ss". Especially, because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia used by people to look something up, e.g. the proper spelling, we should use his correct name. "Gauss" is only a stopgap used in cases where no "ß" is available. The same holds true for Gerhard Schröder, who is not spelled "Schroeder" by Wikipedia, though some media (even BBC) often misspell him with "oe" or even "o". However, this is sloppy, not English. 92.231.221.198 (talk) 21:27, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

It is ss. Have a look at his signature or the statue of him in his birthplace in the article. Dmcq (talk) 23:53, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's that clearcut. See the banknote text at [9] and the German wikipedia article [10]. — Myasuda (talk) 14:11, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Either is correct. Have a look at the East German stamp just below that banknote in the article. He wrote his own name with ss, are we really going to say he was wrong in how he wrote his own name just to conform with how Germans currently treat double s? Dmcq (talk) 14:48, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure you'd get a better reception at Julius Caesar if you propose changing that to Ivlivs. :) At least here the German way of writing the name appears at the top of the lead as well. Dmcq (talk) 15:02, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

First of all, I wasn't promoting changing the article. That was the anonymous editor who opened this discussion. I was simply pointing out that your unqualified statement that "it is ss" is not correct. Second, your (again, unqualified) statement that Gauss wrote his own name with "ss" is misleading, as he certainly used "ß" as is clear from [11]. Maybe you should get your facts straight before you try to make a point. — Myasuda (talk) 01:07, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

It has been argued that it must be "Gauss", because he spelled his name "Gauss". However, now that it is revealed that Gauß, in deed, spelled his name "Gauß" it should be clear that this article has to be moved to "Carl Friedrich Gauß". That is the spelling used in German texts. And nobody would "transliterate" names like Gerhard Schröder, Renate Künast, and Joseph Weiß. 85.179.76.249 (talk) 06:05, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

If you need another source, on page 3 it is stated: "Gauß selbst liebte das ansprechende Schriftbild, schrieb seinen Namen unterschiedlich, mit ß oder mit ss" http://www.gaussjahr.de/pdf/gauss2005_flyer.pdf So he preferred both ways of writing his name. And another source from Göttingen http://www.wiki-goettingen.de/index.php?title=Gau%C3%9F-Gesellschaft_G%C3%B6ttingen http://www.math.uni-hamburg.de/spag/ign/gauss/gaussges.html tells yout that the Gauss/Gauß-Gesellschaft does use both variants in one page text.91.89.8.12 (talk) 19:47, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Optics

Should there be a section on Gauss's optics work? He invented a lens type that is used extensively in camera lenses today, namely Gauss lens. Adriansarli (talk) 17:13, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

It would be a worthwhile addition to the section Later years and death (1831-1855). Gauss, of course, wrote a well-known treatise in 1840/1841 (Dioptrische Untersuchungen) on optics under a paraxial approximation (Gaussian optics) ... and the familiar thin-lens formula that every secondary student learns is due to him. — Myasuda (talk) 01:27, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Spelling of Christian name

Didn't he normally spell his name with a K not a C? I am sure I have more commonly seen it spelt that way. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 10:43, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Looking at his signature in the infobox it looks like a C to me. The statue and the stamp also say Carl if you look at them closely. Dmcq (talk) 11:15, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

He spelled his name Carl Friedrich Gauß. Neither is his first name "Karl", nor is his last name "Gauss". 130.149.229.189 (talk) 11:36, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

The ß is a ligature of ss, it's the same thing to all intents and purposes. If you go to Switzerland for instance they'll use ss instead of ß in their German. Dmcq (talk) 14:51, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

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 01:13, 05 August 2005 (UTC)

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. 01:14, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Quality Rating

It looks like the C-class rating dates from years ago, and the article has come a long way since then. It seems to me to be at least B-class quality, so I'm re-rating it. Bryanrutherford0 (talk) 02:29, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

This page is dominated by mathematics. It really needs a whole section on his work on electromagnetism. Any takers? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.6.46.42 (talk) 15:20, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

...every positive integer is representable as a sum of at most three triangular numbers...

I just tried to get the positive integer 20 from adding up to three triangular numbers - and I can't do it. Have I gone mad or is it impossible to do?

---

Sorry just found out you could with 10+10 - so sorry! 01:14, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for wasting our time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smith9smith9smith9 (talk • contribs) 11:26, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Pronunciation

The first sentence here says Gauss's name is pronounced /ɡaʊs/, which comes out as "Gowss"; but the German WP page spells it "Gauß", which (as I understand the eszett is sounded "sz") would be more like "gauze", wouldn't it? So, does anyone know which it is for certain? Moonraker12 (talk) 18:15, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

It rhymes with "mouse" and "house". --92.208.230.220 (talk) 00:00, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for that: So if the "au" gives an "ow" sound, but the ending is the "s" in "mouse", what difference does the eszett make? Wouldn't it be more like "blouse", or "cows"? Moonraker12 (talk) 23:30, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

The trailing "ß" does not really make a difference in pronunciation vs. "s", its combination of "s" and "z" is rather historical. A final "s" or "ß" as all final consonants in German are voiceless. "ß" is used after long vowels (or diphthongs as in this case), but it still sounds /s/ and doesnt change the sound of the "au" syllable. As I'm German I try the best to answer your question, so please be patient if I misunderstand parts of it! --92.208.230.220 (talk) 17:58, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Oh, so it is just the final form of the letter "s" (like the Greek "σ" and "ς"), and not a difference in pronunciation at all, then. Ah well, I've learned something new! Thank you for enlightening me! Moonraker12 (talk) 08:22, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Glad to help! A German word can also end with letter "s" as "haus" ("house") and rhymes exactly with "Gauß", so you often simply have to know if the word actually is written with final "s" or "ß". --92.208.230.220 (talk) 12:02, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Children predeceasing CFG

In the "Marriage and Children" section it is stated that "Gauss would ultimately see all but one of his children die", but this is totally incompatible with their dates given in the "Family" section, according to which only Louis and Wilhelmina predeceased him. Is the source referenced in the first section correctly quoted, and is it reliable? Chris Thompson (talk) 16:42, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Error

The marriage section has he had two kids with his first wife. The family section says he had three kids with his first wife.  ???? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8805:5800:F500:40BE:C107:161B:A1B5 (talk) 13:27, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Some achievements

I moved a number of bullets from List of things named after Carl Friedrich Gauss#Other notable achievements of Gauss here, but left out the following since they are too vague for me. Maybe someone who knows more about these can add them with the proper links:

• (In French and German literature in particular) Gauss identity may refer to Green's reciprocity theorem
• Gauss was an early pioneer in topology and knot theory, discovering many early results.
• Gauss theorems (two theorems) about the Euler function
• Listed as "Gauss conjectures"
  • The prime number theorem – I could not find a conjecture attributed to Gauss in that article.
  • Hawaii Conjecture" (attributed to Gauss) https://www.math.purdue.edu/~eremenko/uns1.html

◄ Sebastian 14:43, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

References

Palm genus Gaussia

 Done

Dr. Hermann Wendland (1865) described the new palm genus Gaussia and de new species Gaussia princeps, collected by Charles Wright in western Cuba. He named Gaussia in “memoriam astronomi Caroli Friderici Gauss”. Wendland, H., 1865. Ueber die neue Palmengatung Gaussia. Nachr. Königl. Ges. Wiss. Georg-Augusts-Univ. 1865.</ref> Celio E. Moya — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:580:4300:7B70:DCCB:237:B9F1:F4F0 (talk) 15:37, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Nice! I'll add that to List of things named after Carl Friedrich Gauss. ◄ Sebastian 16:27, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Image

The statue image in the personal life section pinches the text inhibiting reading. Should place lower below the bio box. -Inowen (talk) 16:16, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Looks fine both on my cell phone and on my desktop, even on a 1200 pixel wide screen. What device and browser are you using, Inowen? ◄ Sebastian 16:56, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Religion

The whole religion section is clearly a "yeah, but... yeah, but..." contest between theists and atheists. One side desperate to demonstrate that a man of science believed in God, the other trying to counter the argument with ameliorating facts.

My point is this... Why is it even relevant? The fact is, that Gauss' religious beliefs (or potential lack thereof) play no part in his notoriety, his work, or his legacy. It played no major, or noteworthy part in his life, and has no bearing or relevance on his "life story."

I move that the section on religion be deleted in its enirety

Looking for consensus. M R G WIKI999 (talk) 05:05, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Keep: It seems to me that the same argument would apply to the "Family" section; his spouse and children aren't particularly connected to the actions and events that made him notable. Did the location or date of his birth play any part in his notability? We could cut everything from the article except his mathematical and scientific work, but I think many readers would be frustrated and confused not to find other topics in an encyclopedia article on Gauss. Once a person has achieved notability, and we're writing his biography, it's typical to include some biographical detail that may not bear directly on the subject's notability.-Bryanrutherford0 (talk) 14:15, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Keep, but trim: The religious affiliation of any notable person may be of interest, and it is in this case. But the section is disproportionately long compared to other details of his life. Chris Thompson (talk) 12:44, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Agreed.-Bryanrutherford0 (talk) 14:15, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• Stamps of Germany (DDR) 1977, MiNr 2215.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 17:25, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Buettner's punishment

The Anecdotes section says that Buettner had Gauss add the numbers from 1 to 100 as a personal punishment for Gauss's mischief. Bell: Men of Mathematics says that Buettner had the whole class work on the problem to get them out of his hair for an hour. Which is right? Or do both versions have original sources? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.159.232.121 (talk) 19:39, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

I have removed the subsection "Complex Numbers" in the section "Achievements"

I have removed the subheading "Complex Numbers" under the heading "Achievements".

The subsection consists of a block-quote with no context.

Furthermore, it needs to be attributed to Gauss (ie. Gauss is attributed to saying the following about complex numbers:). The source material makes it clear that he is.

Finally, it's not really an achievement of Gauss's rather its just a quote of Gauss's thoughts relevant to complex numbers. The fact that Gauss held this viewpoint can't in any sense be considered an achievement.

While it is a good quote and would make a good conclusion to the subsection if someone chooses to include Gauss's accomplishments with complex numbers.

I can't imagine it would be particularly difficult.

Fantasticawesome (talk) 20:29, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

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? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chewings72 (talk • contribs) 13:14, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Siissmilch

The spelling "Siissmilch" seems to be wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:7C86:9000:31EF:CA52:BAF4:CF9A (talk) 12:42, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Peter_S%C3%BCssmilch . — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:7C86:9000:31EF:CA52:BAF4:CF9A (talk) 12:49, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Good catch! Done. -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 12:51, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Degaussing

This is the word for removing the magnetic signature of ships, but I don't know how to fit it into the article. Any help? Seadowns (talk) 13:19, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Degaussing

This is the word for removing the magnetic signature of ships, but I don't know how to fit it into the article. Any help? Seadowns (talk) 13:19, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

I've added it to the see also section—good catch. Aza24 (talk) 00:26, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Given Name

Was his name Carl Friedrich Gauss or Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss? The title of the page is Carl Friedrich Gauss, the picture caption uses that name, and most of the references use that name, but the first sentence, the "born on," and a couple other sentences use Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss. Where does the "Johann" come from, and if it's really his name, perhaps this page should be consistent. See also "List of ... Carl Friedrich Gauss." Ɛs Huvər (talk) 21:17, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Carl Friedrich

How much did he make a year 107.77.233.189 (talk) 02:00, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Gauss as prodigy and perpetuation of anecdotes

The article states that Gauss was a child prodigy without giving a trustworthy reference. Furthermore, the article includes the anecdotes of his precocity as prominent facts in the Early years section, contributing for perpetuating dubious historical facts, which to this date (2021) are exhaustively repeated by math teachers and science outreach. What's the point in making people believe that genius/talent/precocity is what really matter in maths instead of hard work and passion (even if it comes in an early age, what is really what might make the prodigies geniuses)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 45.166.163.85 (talk) 13:57, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

"Gauß", not "Gauss"

I interpret Wikipedia:Diacritical marks in a way that the form "Gauß" should be used rather than "Gauss". 80.71.142.166 (talk) 20:41, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware virtually all English-language sources refer to him as "Gauss", not "Gauß". Wikipedia:Diacritical marks says Exceptions include some historical persons (as foreign personal names were often anglicized in the past), which I believe applies to Gauss, and it's also worth noting that the page is an essay, not a guideline/policy. OliveYouBean (talk) 22:39, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

That page mentions eszett only once and that's when it quotes house style at Wiley-Blackwell? How can you make such an interpretation? The English language does not typically use that letter. 86.187.236.136 (talk) 22:55, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

This is not a question of Wikipedia style, as Gauss himself used the spelling "Gauss". This is established by 4 images in the article: the front page (in Latin) of his main work, the front page (in German) of a volume of his collected work published in the 19th century, his grave, and his signature. In the two latter cases, the spelling is clearly "ſs" (long s-final s) rather than "ſʒ" or "ß". So, the article uses correctly the spelling of Gauss' time. D.Lazard (talk) 00:51, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Influenced?

It seems weird that Minding, who as a working applied mathematician I was unaware of, is the only person listed under Influenced in the sidebar. I am not a Wikipedia expert, but I suppose there are some standards for how this field should be filled. Could anyone fill me in? It seems like "all of mathematics" might be a better answer than Minding. briardew (talk) 01:50, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

The use of this category in the infobox is deprecated, I have removed it. --Dioskorides (talk) 21:02, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Trivia?

User:‎CactiStaccingCrane has recently deleted ("nuked") some Kilobytes of text with "trivia". I agree, of course, that something within that is merely unnecessary, esp. the so-called "appraisal", but the subchapter "Commemorations" should be saved, without a few useless comments. Some images may be placed into a gallery. I try to restitute the text in this way. Dioskorides (talk) 21:35, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

I think that "Commemorations" is not really needed if we just list "stuff that is named by Gauss". I do agree that we should have a legacy section that focuses on his impact to the wider mathematics world, similar to that of Voltaire#Legacy. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 03:26, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

I think I am quite near to you. We can put the banknotes and the busts or memorials into the lemma List of things named after Carl Friedrich Gauss, though the name "Gauss" is lacking, if we create a subchapter "commemmorations" (or other title) there. The confusion with the other geodesist named Gauss can be deleted, there is no confusion if the first names are added. I only would save the Gauss medal of 1856 in the main text, because of the often cited epithet "princeps mathematicorum". --Dioskorides (talk) 14:36, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

I have now moved most of the "commemorations" to List of things named after Carl Friedrich Gauss. OK? --Dioskorides (talk) 20:44, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Reference 5 is a circular reference

Replace reference 5 with something that does not cite back to this article. All015 (talk) 21:38, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Done. --Dioskorides (talk) 21:51, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Dunnington

The mighty and commendable biography of Dunnington (1955) has often been used for further biographies, also here in Wikipedia, and I have quoted it a lot of times, too. But it is useful and in some respect necessary to read the foreword of Jeremy Gray to the unchanged reprint of 2004. Gray points out that Dunnington's work is not neutral, he seems to be "Gauss' best friend". Of course, he was allowed to do so, a written biography is also a personal document of its author. But we as Wikipedians are not allowed to do so, for request of neutrality. So it may be useful in any case, when we quote Dunnington, to search for another source which does not depend on Dunnington, neither directly nor indirectly.

An example : On page 76, I find some information concerning his friend Bessel with at least six errors, and I worry that the situation might be similar on other pages with "facts" on persons, whom I don't know as well as Bessel. Nobody is perfect, not at all Dunnington, and even some facts on Gauss may be erroneous.

Gray mentions "remarkably few footnotes" in Dunnington's book (somehow similar to Gauss' method of quoting), we often cannot see, which source he had used. Dioskorides (talk) 21:08, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Chapter: "Religious views"

The chapter "Religious views", do we need it really in this extensive form? There is only little knowledge of Gauss' religious views, some disseminated remarks in his correspondence with relation to God, and the report of Sartorius. But Sartorius himself was careful, and mentioned the danger, that for his presentation of Gauss' religious views he "would inevitably be charged with having confused my own (= Sartorius) with his (= Gauss)". (Sartorius 2006, English version, p. 83) The chapter is, to a great extent, based on Dunnigton, who does not quote his sources exactly or does not quote at all. The long citation has the character more of a sermon than of a scientific text. I worry that the danger Sartorius had feared is applicable on Dunnington excessively. And this holds for Rudolf Wagner, the second man telling about his talks with Gauss, too. I think we can give the main facts of this subject in a few sentences, as part of "Personality", and the excessive quotation is not needed. Dioskorides (talk) 13:47, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Done. --Dioskorides (talk) 23:00, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion for a new division into chapters

Hello!

Since number theory is the field of pure mathematics in which Gauss's contributions were most significant, I think it will be better to separate the first subchapter of "Scientific work" into two titles:

• Algebra and number theory
• analysis.

This will enable wikipedians to write more comprehensively on Gauss's contributions to number theory - the deep and important results communicated in the two papers on biquadratic residues are not mentioned at all right now.

In addition, the chapter on analysis in itself should also be written more comprehensively. Gauss's contributions to analysis were mostly unpublished during his lifetime, but should occupy some place here because it completes the the view of his achievements. His accomplishments here include his work on lemniscatic functions and elliptic functions in general, on Jacobi theta functions and Jacobi triple product identity (discovered by Gauss already in 1808), on the complex AGM algorithm and its relation to modular functions, and more. There is even a drawing in his Nachlass of a tessellation of the unit disk with curved triangles ("hyperbolic triangles"), and his results on the metrical relations in this network suggest he may had anticipated the formulas related to Poincare disk model.

I mentioned all these facts just to argue in favor of separation of the first chapter into two. Thanks in advance! עשו (talk) 12:14, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

OK, I agree with the division of this subchapter. I would encourage you to do it. I think the "mathematics" are the most difficult subchapter of this article. Of course, further enlargement can be done, but we must keep in mind, that this Gauss article can give only an overview on the subjects. The vast information must be added to the special articles. Those, however, mostly lack a short historical part; at least, it should give the the original paper or book nof Gauss, where the things were published first. --Dioskorides (talk) 17:30, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

The statements should always be connected with a short reference to the writings (e.g. Gauss (1818)), so that the reader knows where Gauss dealt with the matter. --Dioskorides (talk) 22:31, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

To be published or not to be published, that's always the question. I think it is reasonable, when we – especially in Gauss' mathematics – always make clear, whether the work was published by him in time, published posthumously from the Nachlass, published implicitely by Gauss without a special publisation on it, or only taken from his diary or letters without a following publication. Otherwise we cannot see, what he provided for his contemporaries. They could not take any advantage from unpublished work, of course. --Dioskorides (talk) 22:31, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

I myself will finish my work on Gauss, I have worked on the lemma since half a year now, I have no more ideas. I worry, if I would continue it would be over-detailed. But of course, I can do some editorial work. Greetings --Dioskorides (talk) 22:36, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Non-Euclidean Geometry

I think the present text will cause some misconceptions on Gauss' role in the scientific dfevelopment of this branch of maths. I have modified the text, focussing his interaction with the scientific community, what only causes the progress. Dioskorides (talk) 00:20, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Where can we find it?

The article provides a large overview of Gauss’s own writings, and the text often refers to it (e.g. "Gauss (1809)". But in some remarks it is not clear tio which of Gauss’s writings it may concern.

1. Sub-chapter "Analysis", first section: "One of Gauss’s first independent discoveries…" Where published?

2. Sub-chapter "Analysis", second section: "…works which culminates with his discovery in 1808 of the very general Jacobi triple product identity…" Where can I find it?

3. Sub-chapter "Analysis", fifth section: "In 1822 Gauss published his prize winning essay on conformal mappings…" Title? Where published?

And: "In addition, in unpublished fragments from the years 1834-1839…" Which ones? The Collected Works contain all the unpublished things, which of them are concerned?

4. Sub-chapter "Numerical analysis", first section: "In 1815, he published an article on numeric integration…" Title? Where? Dioskorides (talk) 18:52, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

1. It is published in the Schlesinger's essay mentioned in the list of sources, where it is claimed that Gauss discovered the elementary properties of the AGM already in 1794. The exact year cannot be determined, but since already in Gauss's notebooks from the years 1797-1799 he arrived at more advanced results (not only "elementary" results) on diverse topics such as the lemniscate elliptic functions, Landen's transformation, it is quite probable that the dating to 1794 is accurate. Anyway, it was indeed one of his first independent discoveries.

2. For the claim in this sentence just look at the references in Rajan Roy's book.

3. (i) His prize winning essay (1822) is entitled "General solution to the task of depicting the parts of a given surface on another given surface in such a way that the image becomes similar to the smallest parts of what is depicted" (original german: Allgemeine Auflösung der Aufgabe die Theile einer gegebenen Fläche auf einer andern gegebnen Fläche so abzubilden, dass die Abbildung dem Abgebildeten in den kleinstenTheiIen ähnlich wird). You can find it in volume 4 of his collected works.

(ii) These unpublished fragments are in p.311-320 of volume 10-1 of his collected works. It is true that these fragments have not been discussed in depth anywhere (at least as far as I could find) except in Schlesinger's essay, but neverthless thay do represent a significant part of his work.

4. Gauss's article on numerical integration is entitled "Methodus nova integralium valores per approximationem inveniendi" and can be found in volume 3 of of his collected work.

Glad to help. עשו (talk) 19:26, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

1. I have just referenced with Schlesinger. I hope the page numbers are roughly correct.

2. OK, I have forund it.

3(i) I have inserted the missing title. It is an interesting point, that he wrote this article in German and not in Latin, as usual. Gauss claimed to have written in very short time, too short, and that perhaps could be the reason.

3(ii) I think the text dealing with conformal mapping could be better placed into the geodetic chapter, perhaps following or nearby to the sentence "Gauss developed the universal transverse Mercator projection of the ellipsoidal shaped earth (what he named conform projection) for representing geodetical data in plane charts."

4. OK, it is yet in the article.

In my opinion, we now have enough references. Many thanks to you for your valuable and detailed contributions to the mathematical chapter. I think this article will have some chance to become a "Good Article". Greetings --Dioskorides (talk) 00:13, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

References needed

I think the present version is lacking some references.

1. In sub-chapter "Further Investigations" we read in the third section: „…his two papers on biquadratic residues … are considered second in importance …“ Who considers? Such an arbitrary statement needs reference.

2. The same case in the third section of sub-chapter "Analysis": „Perhaps the most remarkables…“

3. Both the first two sections of "Analysis" are completely lacking references. Dioskorides (talk) 18:51, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

1. I remember I Read this statement somewhere, but I do not remember where. Anyway, relative importance is in the eye of the observer, so this is not such an important sentence. Most sources mention his article on biquadratic residues, so it is definitely one of his most important publications in number theory.

2. For the unique aspects of Gauss's tesselation in Gauss's work I can only give my private research on the topic, this Mathoverflow post - https://mathoverflow.net/questions/370190/how-did-gauss-characterize-the-metrical-relations-in-the-uniform-4-4-4-tiling. In particular, it is shown here that the drawing and Gauss's statements next to it can be derived with the help of Poincare disk model, so definitely Gauss had a significant anticipation of later ideas. This tessellation is also mentioned in John Stillwell's book "Mathematics and its history", but without the derivation of Gauss's statements.

3. Can you tell in more details which parts of the first two sections of "Analysis" deserve references? עשו (talk) 19:41, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your rapid answer. I have just completed some references and add some ideas.

1. We could reduce this sentence to "In his two important papers on biquadratic residues (published in 1828 and 1832) Gauss introduces..."

2. We can delete "Perhaps the most..."

I have read your interesting post on Mathoverflow, but unfortunately we can't take it as a reference, only if it were published in a journal — there is a specuial journal on Gauss resaerch in Göttingen, the Mitteilungen der Gauss Gesellschaft — or anywhere else. We can take the www.mathoverflow link in the Weblink section.I think we can preserve this sentence by omitting "Perhaps the moast remarkable of...", without further reference.

3. Please, see my remarks in the next chapter. Dioskorides (talk) 23:48, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

I have changed the two sentences 1. and 2. in this way. --Dioskorides (talk) 10:22, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Gauss and practical astronomy

The first five sections of the present text deal with Gauss‘ research on the orbits of minor planets, esp. Ceres and Pallas, and his masterpiece „Theoria motus..“. This is standard in Gauss biographies. As it is stated in the text, Gauss' most relevant astronomical activities were finished in 1818, when the new observatory had just gone ready for working. In the following time he mainly cared for geodesy and geophysics, as this were quite usual tasks for astronomers in this time.

But we should not forget that Gauss cared for practical astronomy, too, after 1818. He made a lot of observations and published them rapidly, otherwise the observations would be of low value for other astronomers. In the Collected Work Volume VI we can find the great number of these short communications. But those were standard results, comparable to those of other observatories, not spectacular ones. This may be the reason why biographers tend to ignore them.

Thus I am glad to see, that the last section covers the practical part of astronomical acticity. But I have some objections, the wording seems too "sensational" for me.

1.	"As early as 1799 he did some important work, recorded in entry 97 of his diary, on determining the lunar parallax in any place on Earth by reducing it to a collection of useful formulas, which improved the accuracy of the method of determining geographical location by observing the position of the Moon."

The diary note from 8 April 1799 is: „Formulas novas exactas pro parallaxi eruimus.“ That’s all, and that should not be overinterpreted in that way that he had produced complete new knowledge. His formulae novae were transformations of formulas yet in use by others (Bohnenberger, Lexell), so Gauss decided to keep them for his personal use only and not to publish them, for he presumed them already been published anywhere.

2.	"Later on, he attached importance to revising the values of fundamental astronomical constants, and thereby worked on diverse topics such as the precession and nutation constants, the obliquity of the ecliptic, the proper motion of the Solar System, constructing better stellar aberration tables, as well as the evaluation of the effect of atmospheric refraction on apparent star positions."

What does it mean:"attended importance" and "worked on"? Which results, where published resp. which unpublished papers? Gauss attended, of course, importance to it in his correspondance with Bessel on these subjects. It is widely seen by astronomical historians, that it was Bessel who finally gave the best values for the mentioned astronomical constants in his Fundamenta Astronomiae in 1818. And this corresponds with Brendel‘s view.

So I want to propose a modified text in this way:

"Even early in 1799, Gauss dealt with determination of longitude by use oft he lunar parallax, for which he developed more convient formulas than those were in common use. After his appointment as director of the Göttingen observatory he attached importance to the fundamental astronomical constants in correspondance with Bessel. Gauss himself provided tables for nutation and aberration, the solar coordinates, and refraction." Dioskorides (talk) 10:20, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

I have modified it following the previous proposal. --Dioskorides (talk) 21:26, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Anyone else notice the signature has got a lil integral? 73.202.158.240 (talk) 05:06, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Gauss in MacTutor

MacTutor is a useful encyclopedia of biographies. Some months ago, I have removed the MacTutor Gauss article from the external link collection. Why? I found a lot of errors, here there are:

• the school anecdote: is given as a proved fact
• Gauss discovered Bode's law: Bode's law, the Titius–Bode law, was discovered in 1772.
• "Gauss's teacher there was Kästner": right, but misleading, he was not the only one, e.g. Heyne, Lichtenberg.
• "Bolyai [was his] only known friend": In the Wikipedia article I have given other names.
• "They [Bolyai and G.] met in 1799": right, but this was their last meeting, they met first in 1796
• "left Göttingen in 1798 without a diploma": misleading, as if he had finally broken off his studies
• "returned to Brunswick where he received a degree in 1799": definitely no! Which degree? The stories is correctly told in the next sentences, the doctor diploma from Helmstedt University.
• "began corresponding with Bessel, whom he did not meet until 1825": Gauss and Bessel met in 1807, 1810, 1825, and 1842.
• "he went on making observations until the age of 70." Right, but longer, thus misleading. His last observation was with 74.
• "Berlin University" must be replaced by "Prussian Academy", these were different institutions.
• "Minna and her family were keen to move there": I would like to read a reliable proof for this.
• "In 1837, Weber was forced to leave Göttingen": no, he was dismissed, but went on working with Gauss very intensively. He left Göttingen voluntarily in 1842.

Errare humanum est, and nobody is perfect, but this is too much. And worse, there are 67 references at all, but I cannot find one single inline-reference, so we can't see, whether this errors are MacTutor-made or yet in the sources. We could not produce a WP-lemma in this way, and thus the MacTutor text cannot be a reference for it. And in addition, I think it's not useful for readers, if they find facts different in the external links than in the Wikipedia text. Dioskorides (talk) 21:38, 10 April 2024 (UTC)