Carl Gauss Quotes

“The importance of C.F. Gauss for the development of modern physical theory and especially for the mathematical fundament of the theory of relativity is overwhelming indeed; also his achievement of the system of absolute measurement in the field of electromagnetism. In my opinion it is impossible to achieve a coherent objective picture of the world on the basis of concepts which are taken more or less from inner psychological experience.”
― Albert Einstein

“The best that Gauss has given us was likewise an exclusive production. If he had not created his geometry of surfaces, which served Riemann as a basis, it is scarcely conceivable that anyone else would have discovered it. I do not hesitate to confess that to a certain extent a similar pleasure may be found by absorbing ourselves in questions of pure geometry.”
― Albert Einstein

“In describing the honourable mission I charged him with, M. Pernety informed me that he made my name known to you. This leads me to confess that I am not as completely unknown to you as you might believe, but that fearing the ridicule attached to a female scientist, I have previously taken the name of M. LeBlanc in communicating to you those notes that, no doubt, do not deserve the indulgence with which you have responded.

{Explaining her use of a male pseudonym in a letter to Carl Friedrich Gauss, 1807}”
― Sophie Germain

“For other great mathematicians or philosophers, he used the epithets magnus, or clarus, or clarissimus; for Newton alone he kept the prefix summus.”
― W.W. Rouse Ball, A Short Account of the History of Mathematics

“...and his analysis proved him to be the first of theoretical astronomers no less than the greatest of 'arithmeticians.”
― W.W. Rouse Ball, A Short Account of the History of Mathematics

“The mathematical giant [Gauss], who from his lofty heights embraces in one view the stars and the abysses …”
― Farkas Bolyai