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Saundra WilsonDr. BrewerMAT 211 Honors Contract 04 April 2014The Life Of Carl Friedrich GaussImagine a young boy, a ten-year-old boy to be exact. He is bright eyed, eager and ambitious. After being given the daunting task to write down all of the numbers between 1 and 100 and calculate the sum, the young boy brought his black slate forward to his teacher’s desk, well before all of the other students had finished, with a single number on it’s surface: 5,050. This young prodigy was Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss and he would grow up to become one of the worlds most innovative and influential mathematicians. Noted for his contributions in the areas of number theory, geometry, probability theory, geodesy, planetary astronomy, the theory of functions, and the potential theory, Gauss’s talents and knowledge expanded well past the boundaries of mathematics (Carl Friedrich Gauss). Johann Friedrich Carl Gauss was born on April 30, 1777 in Brunswick, what is now considered Germany, as the only child to poor parents (Carl Friedrich Gauss). His father worked humbly as a gardener and brick layer, but was known for being harsh and for discouraging young Gauss from attending school as he expected his son to carry out the family trade (Weller). However, his mother and his schoolteachers noticed his unusual aptitude for knowledge and calculations from an early age (Carl Friedrich Gauss). In 1791, at the age of 14, he was referred to the Duke of Brunswick who promised to financially assist Gauss so that he would be able to continue his education locally and later at the University of Gottingen (Carl Friedrich Gauss). It was locally, at Brunswick Collegium Carolinum in 1792, that Carl Friedrich Gauss made his first significant discovery in mathematics. (Carl Friedrich Gauss). Here, Gauss made the profound discovery that a regular polygon with 17 sides can be constructed with a ruler and a compass alone (Carl Friedrich Gauss). According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the profound impact of this discovery was not in the discovery itself, but lies in the Gauss’s proof of his discovery that used an innovative analysis of the factorization of polynomial equations (Carl Friedrich Gauss). The success of his findings drove Gauss to give up his intention to study languages at the University at Gottingen and instead, he decided to pursue mathematics (Weller). This decision turned out to be crucial for Gauss and within 10 years of studying at Gottingen, Gauss had two major publications in the mathematic and scientific community. In 1801, Gauss published a textbook on algebraic number theory entitled Disquisitiones Arithmeticae (Carl Friedrich Gauss). The range of topics covered in the textbook became the standard agenda in number theory for a large portion of the 19th century (Carl Friedrich Gauss). The book included modular arithmetic, solutions of quadratic polynomials, and the theory of factorization (Carl Friedrich Gauss). Gauss’s second major publication came about when he rediscovered the asteroid Ceres, an asteroid that had originally been discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi in 1800, using a new method called the method of least squares (Carl Friedrich Gauss). After this initial astronomic discovery, Gauss continued to explore the application of mathematics to astronomy by inventing the heliotrope, a device that reflected sunlight and improved the accuracy of astronomic observations, and by exploring the concept of the curvature of a surface (Carl Friedrich Gauss). Soon after these discoveries, Gauss underwent major changes in his personal life when he married Johanna Osthoff on October 9, 1805 (O’Conner and Robertson). Tragically, Johanna died after giving birth to their second son in 1809 (O’Connor and Robertson). Fighting through this tragedy, Gauss attached to Johanna’s best friend Minna, married her, and together they had 3 more children (O’Connor and Robertson). It can be said that Carl Friedrich Gauss’s name most famously is referred to in the phrase “Gaussian Elimination”, an algorithm for solving systems of linear equations. However, Gauss did not, in fact, create this technique (Gaussian Elimination). The Gaussian Elimination Method originates from ancient Chinese mathematical texts, however, Sir Isaac Newton increased the notoriety of the method when he developed algebra (Gaussian Elimination). Gauss, in 1810, then developed a new notation for symmetric elimination that was used by professional hand computers in the 19th centrury to solve equations in the least-squares problems. This notation involves the coefficients of the equations being written between brackets with specific rules that tell the student how they may manipulate the coefficients to produce the desired matrix result. This image illustrates some potential steps of Gaussian elimination where the student uses different row operations to get a desired result of 1’s and zero’s in the matrix. Carl Friedrich Gauss was a man of great intellectual ability, creativity, and perseverance. Many of his findings are now widely accepted across the fields of mathematics and astronomy and even today, over a century after his death, Gauss’s contributions continue to inspire and support the explorations of current mathematicians and astronomers. Works Cited"Carl Friedrich Gauss." Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclop?dia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. "Gaussian Elimination." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 22 Mar. 2014. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.O'Connor, J. J., and E. F. Robertson. "Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss." Gauss Biography. University of St Andrews, School of Mathematics and Statistics, Dec. 1996. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.Weller, Karolee. "Carl Friedrich Gauss." Math.wichita.edu. Wichita State University, n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. ................
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