Carl Friedrich Gauss

Dubbed "the prince of mathematics", Carl Gauss is considered by many to be one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. At the age of three, Gauss is said to have discovered an arithmetic error on his father's bookkeeping. The child prodigy was encouraged by his teacher and excelled throughout his early schooling. When he was fourteen, Gauss was introduced to Ferdinand, the Duke of Brunswick. Impressed with the youth, the duke gave Gauss a yearly stipend and sponsored his education for many years.

In 1795, Gauss Enrolled at Gottingen University, where he remained for three years. While at Gottingen, Gauss had complete academic freedom; he has not required to attend lectures, he had no required conferences with professors or tutors, and he did not take exams. Much of his time was spent studying independently in the library. For reason unknown to us, Gauss left the university in 1798 without diploma. Instead, he sent his disertation to the University of Helmstedt and in 1799 was awarded his degree without the usual oral examination.



In 1796, Gauss began his famous mathematical diary. Discovered 40 year after his death, the 146 sometimes cryptic entries exhibit the diverse range of topics that Gauss pondered and pioneered. The first entry was Gauss's discovery (at the age of nineteen) of a method for contructing a 17-sided polygon with a compass and a straightedge. Other entries include important result in number theory, algebra, calculus, analysis, astronomy, electricity, magnetism, the foundation of geometry, and probability.

At the dawn of nineteenth century, Gauss began his lifelong study of astronomy. On january 1, 1801, Italian astronomer Guiseppe Piazzi discovered Ceres, the first of unknown planetoid (minor planets or asteroids). Piazzi and other astronomer observed Ceres for 41 days, until it was lost behind the sun. Due to his interest in mathematics of astronomy, Gauss turned his attention to Ceres. Working with a minimum amount of data, he successfully calculated the orbit of Ceres. At the end of the year, the planetoid was rediscovered in exactly at the spot that Gauss had predicted.

To obtain the orbit of Ceres, Gauss utilized his method of least squares, a technique for dealing with experimental error. Let x represent the error. Gauss's theory involved minimizing x^2 -  that is obtaining the least square of error. Theorizing that the probability of a small error was higher than that of a large error. Gauss subsequently developed the normal distribution, or bell-shaped curve, to explain the probabilities of the random errors. Because of his pioneering efforts, some mathematicians refers to the normal distribution as the Gaussian distribution.

In 1807, Gauss became director of the newly constructed observatory at Gottingen. He held his position until his death some 50 years later.

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wiki : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauss