KARL FRIEDRICH GAUSS 245 



brought to Duke Karl Johann Ferdinand of Brunswick, who 

 then became and remained Gauss' patron and protector. 



Gauss must have already studied Newton's Principia when 

 he was at school, and always praised it as his model; alto- 

 gether and in every way, he retained a limitless respect for 

 Newton. This early study allowed Gauss to begin his 

 course at Gottingen University, where he remained only 

 three years, by at once inventing the method of least squares, 

 and this was followed uninterruptedly by further remark- 

 able achievements, which belong to the most important 

 advances in mathematics, but for the moment remained un- 

 published, with the exception of his famous dissertation, on 

 the basis of which he was given his doctorate in Helmstedt 

 without an examination. The circumstances of his indus- 

 trious life were then fairly simple. Until the death of the 

 Duke, Gauss received a fixed pension in Brunswick, so that 

 he could devote himself entirely to work. In the year 1807 

 he then accepted a call to Gottingen, where he was pro- 

 fessor of mathematics and director of the newly built obser- 

 vatory until he died at the age of seventy-eight. Gauss 

 married twice. Both wives died young; but of his six 

 children his youngest daughter remained to take care of him 

 until his death.^ 



Gauss' own statements concerning his manner of thought 

 and work would be instructive to the many people who, par- 

 ticularly in the school world, allow the high educative im- 

 portance and effect of scientific investigation and science 

 generally to be overlooked, instead of encouraging it, be- 

 cause they have not been taught better than to seek the main 

 achievement in the mathematical and technical side, which 

 is almost solely cultivated. As opposed to this, and perhaps 

 more impressive than our remark already made relative to 



1 Gauss' family life is described in an account published in honour of 

 the 1 50th anniversary of his birth, C. F. Gauss und die Seinen, by H. Mack, 

 Brunswick, 1927. 



