1777-1855
A German mathematician, astronomer and physicist, Gauss studied at the Collegium Carolinum at Brunswick and later the University of Gottingen, paid for by the Duke of Brunswick, who had noted his mathematical precocity. Gauss is widely regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, having made contributions to the fields of number theory, statistics, geometry, differential equations, the hypergeometric function and the curvature of surfaces. He created four new proofs of the fundamental theorem of algebra, one of prime number theory at a young age, and six of quadratic reciprocity.
Gauss spent most of his life the director of the Gottingen Observatory, where he studied celestial mechanics and introduced a new mathematical theory of optics and lenses, as well as discovering the theory of elleptic functions. He also extensively studied the Earth's magnetism and developed the magnetometer along with Wilhelm Weber, as well as publishing a new law of electric field strength, Gauss's Law.