Mathematician · 1777 – 1855

Carl Friedrich Gauss

Little-Known Facts

  • As a teenager he reportedly summed the integers from 1 to 100 instantly by pairing terms, foreshadowing his genius.
  • He kept many discoveries unpublished, and his diaries later revealed results decades ahead of their formal announcement.

Myths & Misconceptions

Did Gauss invent the telegraph?

Not the modern telegraph, but with Wilhelm Weber he built one of the earliest working electromagnetic telegraphs for experimental communication in Göttingen.