wednesday book about a Great Man

[landofnowhere]

Gauss, Titan of Science by G. Waldo Dunnington, with additional material by Jeremy Gray. I mentioned in last week's post that during recent air travel I watched a movie with a dubiously historical version of Gauss and was entertained but ultimately would accept no substitutes for actual historical Gauss.

This is the biography of Carl Friedrich Gauss that I picked up off a university library shelf when I was 15, and made me go all swoony over Gauss's letter proposing to his first wife (link is to the original German manuscript). Returning to it with less swooniness and a more mature ability to evaluate historical sources, and also reading a new edition with helpful front matter, it's clear the book is not 100% "actual historical Gauss": it starts off with a version of the famous 5050 story, which is based on an anecdote that Gauss reportedly told about his childhood, but probably didn't happen exactly that way.

Indeed, as I learned from the front matter, G. Waldo Dunnington was a professional Gauss stan; one of his elementary school teachers was a great-granddaughter of Gauss, and learning that there was no Victorian Great Man biography of Gauss, he spent his entire academic career (interrupted by WWII) remedying that lack. Since I'm also a Gauss stan, I found the book generally readable if sometimes a bit repetitive, and enjoyed various fun Gauss facts. (In the department of obscure historical figures who ought to be fictionalized, there is Friedrich Ludwig Wachter, Gauss's student who studied non-Euclidean geometry and vanished without a trace at age 25.)

I'll probably do more Gauss reading (though also I now have an unproofread scan of Teresa by Edith Ayrton Zangwill so I may read that first); I've started with the letters online, but may also seek out other biographies. I continue to be fascinated by Gauss's youngest daughter, whose story would make a good historical romance; and having done some Gauss reading I'm starting to think I can actually write this fic.

Comments

[primeideal]

Hah, when I saw "go all swoony over Gauss' letter" I mentally autocompleted it "...to Sophie Germain"? That's a good one too ;)

[landofnowhere]

That absolutely is a swoony letter! (I encountered that one reading the play Proof at about the same age.)

[primeideal]

I've seen "Proof" several times and appreciated how I identified first with the main character and then the infinite-track grad student at different points in time, but I encountered the Gauss letter first...Actually, you know what, that's probably something else I discovered via "Fermat's Enigma," heh.

[landofnowhere]

I've only actually seen it once (by a local theatre company, have not seen the movie), and I read it a couple times (including a live group reading as part of a teen book group) before that. (The main thing I got from seeing it staged is that it's actually funny.) I think it does a good job of making all the characters relatable, though when I looked back at the script a few years ago, I went "Hal can't name a female mathematician? Has he been living under a rock???" Which admittedly was in various ways more plausible in 2000 than in 2025, but in retrospect does feel like erasure of all the actual female mathematicians who were active at the time. (I also read Hal as being in his first job post-PhD and stalled out on research, rather than as infinite-track graduate student. But maybe he's just really bad with names.)

But yeah, as I've mentioned before I did grow up on popular math/math history books, and had read multiple versions of the Sophie German story before Proof; probably one of them quoted the letter, but it didn't make a big impression until that scene. (I was 15 and had terrible taste in romance, OK? Admittedly most of the other people in the library teen book group thought that Hal was a scumbag.)

[lunabee34]

*cheerleads the fic*

[landofnowhere]

Thank you, I can use all the encouragement I can get!

[seekingferret]

Friedrich Ludwig Wachter, Gauss's student who studied non-Euclidean geometry and vanished without a trace at age 25.)

Sounds like a Pynchon character!

[oracne]

Maybe Wachter figured out how to time travel!

[hidden_variable]

I look forward to the fic!

Also, that was a fun article about the 5050 story. I'd definitely heard it before (in the 1-100 form), but hadn't realized there were so many different versions floating around.

[landofnowhere]

Oh yeah, I ran across that article a couple years ago, it's a really interesting investigation into mathematical folklore!

[abangaku]

I suppose I’m glad that the Gauss in the movie is only dubiously historical! I was recommended the book that it’s based on about a month ago and, based on the blurb I read at least, can’t say I find its version of Gauss particularly appealing.

[landofnowhere]

This book review by a mathematician is prety scathing!

[abangaku]

Yeah, okay, well, the thing in the blurb about Gauss being “barely socialized” was definitely one of the things that raised my hackles (along with the connotations that gave to what followed)! Glad to see that Oort debunks it.

[queenlua]

was immensely charmed by teenage!you getting all swoony over Gauss's letter :) (and i think i got some of its effect via the power of google translate haha)

and re: therese gauss: i would read that fic; be sure to share it here when/if it's ready :)

[landofnowhere]

I have been reading a lot of stuff via Google Translate, as my German is not up to that level. (I passed the language exam in grad school, but reading technical material is much easier, and since then I've just done some intermittent Duolingo.) You can find Dunnington's translation unpaywalled here.

Thanks for the encouragement -- will try to get past my block and actually write something!

[tabacoychanel]

a professional Gauss stan
nice work if you can get it!!!

your Gauss nerdery puts a smile on my face, please consider me cheering the fic's existence as well