Lab
Library
Journal
Shop
Sign in
to keep
Share image
1
281
Heroes of the Telegraph
·
John Munro
255
APPENDIX.
I.
CHARLES
FERDINAND
GAUSS.
CHARLES
FERDINAND
GAUSS
was
born
at
Braunschweig
on
April
30,
1777.
His
father,
George
Dietrich,
was
a
mason,
who
employed
himself
otherwise
in
the
hard
winter
months,
and
finally
became
cashier
to
a
TODTENCASSE,
or
burial
fund.
His
mother
Dorothy
was
the
daughter
of
Christian
Benze
of
the
village
of
Velpke,
near
Braunschweig,
and
a
woman
of
talent,
industry,
and
wit,
which
her
son
appears
to
have
inherited.
The
father
died
in
1808
after
his
son
had
become
distinguished.
The
mother
lived
to
the
age
of
ninety-seven,
but
became
totally
blind.
She
preserved
her
low
Saxon
dialect,
her
blue
linen
dress
and
simple
country
manners,
to
the
last,
while
living
beside
her
son
at
the
Observatory
of
Gottingen.
Frederic,
her
younger
brother,
was
a
damask
weaver,
but
a
man
with
a
natural
turn
for
mathematics
and
mechanics.
When
Gauss
was
a
boy,
his
parents
lived
in
a
small
house
in
the
Wendengrahen,
on
a
canal
which
joined
the
Ocker,
a
stream
flowing
through
Braunschweig.
The
canal
is
now
covered,
and
is
the
site
of
the
Wilhelmstrasse,
but
a
tablet
marks
the
house.
When
a
child,
Gauss
used
to
play
on
the
bank
of
the
canal,
and
falling
in
one
day
he
was
nearly
drowned.
He
learned
to
read
by
asking
the
letters
from
his
friends,
and
also
by
studying
an
old
calendar
which
hung
on
a
wall
of
his
father's
house,
and
when
four
years
old
he
knew
all
the
numbers
on
it,
in
spite
of
a
shortness
of
sight
which
afflicted
him
to
the
end.
On
Saturday
nights
his
father
paid
his
workmen
their
wages,
and
once
the
boy,
who
had
been
listening
to
his
calculations,
jumped
up
and
told
him
that
he
was
wrong.
Revision
showed
that
his
son
was
right.
Marker
Marker
Fine marker
White-out
Fine white-out
Circle
Paint
Unmarker
Hand
Scalpel
Dice
Sieve
Purify
Undo
Redo
Start over
