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Johann Carl Frederich Gauss was born on Apr. 30, 1777 in Brunswick, Germay. Many consider him to have been a child prodigy since he taught himself reading and arithmetic by the age of three. In 1792, his talent caught the attention of the Duke of Brunswick who later gave Gauss a stipend to pursue his education. He attended Caroline College from 1792 to 1795. While there, he formulated the least-squares method and dealt with the concept of congruence in number theory.
By 1799, Gauss was awarded a Ph.D for giving the first proof of the fundamental theorem of algebra during a doctoral dissertation. In 1801, he published "Disquisitiones Arithmeticae", which contained solutions to several problems in number theory. Gauss also predicted the orbit of a newly discovered asteroid, Ceres, using his least squares approximation method. This discovery eventually led to a position as astronomer at the Gottingen Observatory.
The intricate research Gauss performed contributed to the fields of differential geometry, theoretical astronomy, statisics, magnetism, mechanics, acoustics, and optics.
Links:
http://www.keypress.com/sketchpad/java_gsp/squares.html
http://pw1.netcom.com/~hjsmith/GPrimes/GPriWhat.html
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