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In the hushed moments preceding The Feast of Ascension, a child graced the world with his presence, his birth falling precisely eight days before this sacred celebration, which unfolds 39 days after Easter. Bound by the enigmatic ties of time, his mother could only relate his birth to the shifting sands of Easter's date. Yet, little did she know, this child, who would have to calculate his own birthdate (30th April, 1777), was already destined to carve his name into the annals of history as the Prince of Mathematicians. Later, while determining his birthdate Carolus Fridericus Gauss devised an algorithm to figure out Easter dates in any year, now famously known as Gauss’s Easter Algorithm and went on to become a mathematician, astronomer, geodesist and physicist who heavily influenced and guided the fields of Mathematics and Physics.
One day, as Carl's teacher droned on about arithmetic, the young prodigy's mind began to wander. Bored with the simple problems presented in class, Carl's thoughts turned to a puzzle that had been occupying mathematicians for centuries and his mind for days: how to construct a regular 17-sided polygon using only a compass and straightedge. Determined to crack the puzzle, Carl spent hours poring over his books, experimenting with different approaches. Finally, after countless failed attempts, inspiration struck. With a flash of insight, Carl realized that he could achieve his goal by dividing the circle into 17 equal parts, each corresponding to a vertex of the polygon.
Excitedly, Carl set to work, his hands moving deftly as he executed his plan. As the lines began to take shape on the paper, Carl felt a rush of exhilaration. He had done it! With a triumphant smile, Carl proudly presented his creation to his teacher, who was astonished by the young boy's ingenuity. This solution was his first ever publication. In fact, later he proved that only those N-gons can be constructed with just a compass and a straight-edge for which the odd prime factors of N are distinct Fermat Primes. And Carl did all this when he was just 19!
He started off with such simple and fundamental questions like polygons and Easter dates and progressed his way through the theory of numbers, analysis of elliptic functions, calculating orbital positions of celestial bodies, formalising Electromagnetism, determining the shape of the Earth by INVENTING (!) his own instrument, the Heliotrope. Probably spending so much time thinking about the shape of the Earth led to just another one of his inventions, that of the field of Differential Geometry. `Theorema Egregium’, he called it, which means `remarkable theorem’, a consequence of which is that there could be no perfect flat map of the Earth. Albert Einstein’s theory of General Relativity, the Quantum Field Theory and later String Theory heavily rely on ideas of Differential Geometry. Gauss also developed the theory of Errors, which is the foundation of all of modern Statistics, Data Analysis and even Machine Learning.
Today, Carl Friedrich Gauss's legacy continues to live on, inspiring generations of scientists to push the boundaries of human knowledge as while as serving as a beacon of curiosity and ingenuity. His story serves as a reminder where curiosity, dedication and perseverance can take us. And so, the tale of the mathematical prodigy Carl Friedrich Gauss continues to captivate and inspire all who hear it. Finishing with a great quote from Gauss himself:
"It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment."
-Prince of Mathematicians
Carolus Freidrich Gauss
Author: Gahan Chattopadhyay
Editor: Tanishq Gupta
Illustrator: Aviral Srivastava
References: Heptadecagon, animation the construction according H. W. Richmond (under CC License)