Carl Guass and His Influence on Modern Mathematics

On April 30, 1777, a child prodigy named Carl Gauss was born in the small town of Brunswick, Germany. He was not born into a family of wealth, but was instead the son of uneducated, lower class parents. It was at the age of three that his genius was recognized; he had caught a mistake that his father had made on while calculating finances. It was only a few years later that others began to see how intelligent Gauss was. In primary school, his teacher attempted to keep his class busy by having the students add up the integers from 1 to 100. Unlike the other children, Gauss was able to answer the question in only a few seconds. Instead of trying to add them all up individually, Gauss realized that pair- wise addition of terms from the opposite sides of the list created equal sums, and after multiplying, he would have the correct answer. As he grew older, his intelligence surpassed the majority of the world, allowing him to become one of the greatest mathematicians to ever live.

It was during his college years that Gauss made many of his most important discoveries. He first attended Collegium Carolinum from 1792-1795 and then attended the University of Göttingen from 1795-1798. He was extremely interested in the field of mathematics, saying "Mathematics is the queen of sciences and arithmetic is the queen of mathematics." Gauss focused mainly on polygons and number theorys. In 1796 he made his first big discovery; he found that any regular polygon with a number of sides that is a Ferment prime can be contructed by a compass and a straight edge. This finding revolutionized geometry and is still used today in architechure, engineering, and other jobs involving the use of distinct shapes. Althought it was a magnificent discovery, the find did not appeal to him. During an interview, he said, "I confess that Ferment's Theorem as an isolated proposition has very little interest for me, because I could easily lay down a multitude of such propositions, which one could neither prove nor dispose of." With his newfound discovery, he was able to create the first ever heptadecagon. Gauss continued to work harder than ever in 1796, proving numerous other laws and theorems. He invented modular arithmetic, which is a system of arithmetic for integers, where numbers wrap around after reaching a certain value. Only weeks later, Gauss became the first to prove the quadratic reciprocacy law, which was one of the earliest forms of implictaion statements. This led to further advancements pertaining to implications, many of which are taught today to high school students. Gauss was not yet done with his 1796 discoveries. He wrote, "Heureka! num= Δ + Δ + Δ" when he found that every positive integer can be represented as a sum of at least three triangular numbers.

Math and knowledge were not the only things important to Gauss; he had strong faith in God and appreciated his family. When talking about faith in relation to science, he declared, "There are problems to whose solution I would attach an infinitely greater importance than to those of mathematics, for example touching ethics, or our relation to God, or concerning our destiny and our future; but their solution lies wholly beyond us and completely outside the province of science." Unfortuneately, his first wife, Johanna Osthoff, passed away soon after marriage and his son Louis died shortly after. Gauss was stricken with depression, but continued to have faith in the Lord.

Gauss continued his work in the field of mathematics throughout his entire life, but after his early years, he did not make anymore breakthrough discoveries. Instead of seeking to make entirely new discoveries, he looked at other mathematician's work and expounded upon their ideas. As he once said, "Mathematicians stand on each other's shoulders." On February 23, 1855, Gauss passed away. His achievements were so great that he has had numerous commemorations. At one point, he was on the 10 mark German banknote. Today, the Gauss crater on the moon, the first German Antarctica exploration ship, and the Gauss tower all hold his name in remembrance. His accomplishments opened the eyes of other scientists, shedding new light on mathematical possibilities. He will be forever known as one of the greatest math scholars ever to live.