Carl Friedrich Gauss

At an early age, Gauss showed unusual ability in mathematics. In fact, some say that he was only three when he corrected his father's calculations of the pay due men working under him. The father was a brick layer and Gauss was brought up in circumstances that barely escaped poverty. At the elementary school in Brunswick, he attracted the attention of an assistant teacher Bartels who was later to become professor of mathematics at Kasan in Russia and then at Dorpat in Germany. At Brunswick, Bartels' duties included cutting quill pens for the younger boys and helping them with their writing. Bartels read mathematics with Gauss and introduced him to the binomial theorem and to infinite series when Gauss was only twelve. Gauss attended the gymnasium in Brunswick and in 1792 with the financial support of the duke of Brunswick who had become interested in him, he went to Caroline College in Brunswick and later to GÖttingen. At Caroline College Gauss worked in mathematics and in languages. When he entered the university in 1795, he had made progress in the theory of least squares, but he was still undecided whether to work in philology or in mathematics. His career to this point has been called his “prehistoric period.” During this time, his study in the theory of numbers was largely experimental—the assembling of many cases, the forming of a rule, the proving of the theorem.