CARL FRIEDRICH GAUSS' contributions to mathematics bridged the gap between the exciting discoveries of the 18th century and the sober mathematical rigor of the 19th. A master of modern analysis, Gauss was one of the last great universalists. His work reached out into many new fields. It was he who pioneered in the theory of numbers, or higher arithmetic; the theory of forms and groups, or higher algebra; theories of periodic functions, or higher trigonometry; theories of curvature, or higher geometry; the general theory of functions; including the fundamental theorem of algebra and the nature of complex numbers; and the theory of parallels, or the foundation of non-Euclidean geometry. Gauss was a man of simple wants and led an uneventful life, although he knew times of sadness and disappointment. Devoted to his family, deeply religious and somewhat fatalistic, he shunned politics, but took a lively interest in the technology of his time. His was a rare combination of tremendous creative power and relentless self-criticism. Modest but self-assured; cautious, sensitive, immensely patient, and serene—this was the Prince of Mathematicians as his contemporaries knew him.

From the book