Carl Gauss was a man who is known for making a great deal breakthroughs in the wide variety of his work in both mathematics and physics. He is responsible for immeasurable contributions to the fields of number theory, analysis, differential geometry, geodesy, magnetism, astronomy, and optics, as well as many more. The concepts that he himself created have had an immense influence in many areas of the mathematic and scientific world.

Carl Gauss was born Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss, on the

When Carl Gauss reached the age of seven, he began elementary school. His potential for brilliance was recognized immediately. Gauss's teacher Herr Buttner, had assigned the class a difficult problem of addition in which the students were to find the sum of the integers from one to one hundred. While his classmates toiled over the addition,

This act of sheer genius was so astounding to Herr Buttner that the teacher took the young Gauss under his wing and taught him fervently on the

In 1788 Gauss began his education at the Gymnasium, with the assistance of his past teacher Buttner, where he learned High German and Latin. After receiving a scholarship from the Duke of Brunswick, Gauss entered Brunswick Collegium Carolinum in 1792. During his time spent at the academy Gauss independently discovered Bode's law, the binomial theorem,

In 1798 Gauss left Gottingen without a

In the summer of 1801 Gauss published his first book, Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, under a gratuity from the Duke of Brunswick. The book had seven sections, each of these

In June of 1801, Zach an astronomer whom Gauss had come to know two or three years before, published the orbital positions of, Ceres, a new "small planet", otherwise know as an asteroid. Part of Zach's publication included Gauss's prediction for the orbit of this celestial body, which greatly differed from those predictions made by others. When Ceres was rediscovered it was almost exactly where

Although Gauss did not disclose his methods at the time, it was found that he had used his least squares approximation method. This successful prediction started off Gauss's long involvement with the field of astronomy.On October ninth, 1805 Gauss was married to Johana Ostoff. Although Gauss lived a happy personal life for the first time, he was shattered by the death of his benefactor, The Duke of Brunswick, who was killed fighting for the

In 1807 Gauss left Brunswick to take up the position of director of the Gottingen observatory. This was a time of many changes for Carl Gauss. Gauss had made his way to Gottingen by late