University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Rare Book Room Exhibit

Gauss is universally regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians who ever lived. By the age of 20, he had created the ruler and compass construction of a regular 17-gon: this was in many ways the most impressive advance in geometry since the Greeks. In 1801, Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, appeared. This discussed his geometric construction, as well as the proof of forms. Tietze relates that "The young Dirichlet had as a constant companion all his travels, like a devout man with his prayer book, an old, worn copy of the Disquisitiones Arithmeticae of Gauss." It is without question one of the most influential scholarly books of any kind of the last two centuries. Though Gauss was known as "The Prince of Mathematics", he also worked for many years as director of the Gottingen Observatory and made contributions to theoretical astronomy and geodesy and the study of magnetism.

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