Prime Obsession Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics (2003) / Chapter Skim
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4. On the Shoulders of Giants
4. On the Shoulders of Giants
Pages 48-62
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From page 48... ...
Almost instantly, Gauss threw his slate onto the master's table, saying, "Ligget se.f' which in the peasant dialect of that place and time meant, "There it is! " Gauss had mentally listed the numbers horizontally in or(ler (1, 2, 3, .
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From page 49... ...
If there is a mathematicians' Heaven, some sumptuous apartments must be set aside in it for him, for his use whenever he feels inclined to visit. Hearing of the boy Gauss's talent, the Duke asked to see him.
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From page 50... ...
To prevent Saxony from becoming a French satellite, the Prussians occupied it, calling the Duke of Brunswick out of retirement he was 71 years old at this point to lead their forces. Napoleon declared war and his army struck northwest through Saxony toward Berlin.
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From page 51... ...
We know from his correspondence, his surviving unpublished papers, and circumstantial evidence in his published worksthat what he presented to the world was only part of what he discovered. Theorems and proofs that would have made another man's reputation, Gauss left languishing in his personal (liaries.
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From page 52... ...
His personal seal showed a tree with only sparse fruit, and the motto, Pauca sed mature "Few, but ripe." This is, as I said, a common failing among mathematicians and often makes the reading of published mathematical papers a very tedious business. In one of the minor classics of modern psychological literature, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Erving Goffman (levelops a theory of"performances," in which a product or activity created in conditions of disorder and opportunity in some "back" environment is presented as a smooth, finished creation at the "front." Restaurants illustrate the point.
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From page 53... ...
III. In December 1849 Gauss exchange(1 letters with the astronomer Johann Franz Encke (after whom a famous comet is named)
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From page 54... ...
By"chiliads" Gauss meant blocks of 1,000 numbers. So beginning in 1792 when he was fifteen years old!
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From page 55... ...
V Because I am surveying here relevant discoveries and conjectures before 1800, and because he was the author of the "Golden Key," of which I am going to make so much in later chapters, this is the right place to introduce the other first-rank mathematical genius born in the eighteenth century, Leonhard Euler (pronounced"oiler"~.
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From page 56... ...
He was especially fond of the company of foreigners, of whom at that time there was a large settlement near Moscow, in the so-called "German suburb." Here, among Scottish mercenaries, Dutch merchants, and German and Swiss engineers, Peter took in European science and culture and indulged his passion for fireworks and boats (in between riotous banquets and all-night drinking bouts)
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From page 57... ...
The ([earth of learning in Russia was in(lee(1 so great that there were no Russians capable of acting as academicians. In fact, since Russia lacked any significant number of elementary or secondary schools, there were not even any Russian youngsters qualifie(1 to attend as students at the attached university.
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From page 58... ...
The St. Petersburg Academy opened its doors in August, 1725too late for Tsar Peter to preside over the ceremony; he had died six months earlier.
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From page 59... ...
Euler stuck it out for 13 years, burying himself in work, staying well clear of the court and its intrigues. "Common prudence forced him into an unbreakable habit of industry," writes E.T.
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From page 60... ...
In 1745-1747 Frederick built the Sans Souci summer palace for himself at Potsdam, 20 miles outside Berlin. (Euler helped design a system of water pumps for the place.)
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From page 61... ...
Euler wrote mainly in Latin, but this is not much of an obstacle to appreciating him, as he had a spare and utilitarian style.22 Euler's crystal-clear Latin makes one realize what western civilization lost when scholars ceased writing in that language. Gauss was the last important mathematician to do so; this was one of those changes that came upon us after the Napoleonic wars.
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From page 62... ...
(As a writer working at home, with two small children running around, this is very impressive indeed to me.) He seems to have been incapable of intrigue, seems never to have lost a friend other than by death, and was frank in all his dealings though, if Strachey is to be believed, willing to bend his principles a little for the sake of a quiet life.23 He wrote one of the first pop-science bestsellers, Letters to a German Princess, explaining to ordinary rea(lers why the sky is blue, why the moon looks larger when it rises, and similar points of common bafflement.24 Underneath it all was a rock-solid religious faith.
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