Carl Friedrich Gauss

Carl Friedrich Gauss was born on 30 April 1777 in Brunswick, in the Duchy of Brunswick, and died on 23 February 1855 in Gottingen. After early patronage from the Duke of Brunswick he studied at Gottingen University, then in 1807 became director of the Gottingen Observatory, a post he held for the rest of his life. In 1801, at twenty-four, he published the Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, unifying number theory into one systematic framework and including, among its results, a construction of the regular seventeen-sided polygon by ruler and compass, the most significant advance in the subject since ancient Greek mathematics. The same year he used a new method of least squares to correctly predict the position of the dwarf planet Ceres from limited observations. He also worked extensively in geodesy, magnetism and differential geometry, where his Theorema Egregium introduced what became known as Gaussian curvature, and privately investigated the independence of Euclid's parallel postulate for decades without publishing his conclusions, for fear of the controversy it would provoke.