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Carl Friedrich Gauss (2475 words) |
 | Gauss was a child prodigy, of whom there are many anecdotes pertaining to his astounding precocity while a mere toddler, and made his first ground-breaking mathematical discoveries while still a teenager. |
 | Gauss predicted correctly the position at which it could be found again, and it was rediscovered by Franz Xaver von Zach on December 31, 1801 in Gotha, and one day later by Heinrich Olbers in Bremen. |
 | Gauss crater on the Moon is named in honour of Carl F. Gauss, as is the asteroid 1001 Gaussia. |
| Carl Friedrich Gauss Summary (7914 words) |
 | Gauss was the first to adopt a rigorous approach to the treatment of infinite series, as illustrated by his treatment of the hypergeometric series. |
 | After the discovery of Ceres in 1801, the body was lost to observers, but from Piazzi's observations before it disappeared, Gauss successfully determined the orbit of this asteroid and was able to predict accurately its position. |
 | Gauss envisaged the possibility of developing a geometry without the parallel postulate and on one occasion even measured the angles of a triangle formed by three mountains, finding the sum to be two right angles within the limits of experimental error. |