2. The Times of Carl Friedrich Gauss

Gauss loved numbers. When he imagined geometric concepts and from them developed what we would now call abstract algebra, he came to shapes from the perspective that these new approaches would help him better understand the nature of numbers. Ever since his elementary school experience in which he successfully solved a problem for his teacher based on the application of a numerical series, Gauss had numbers, integers and shapes racing in his head. While he was already publishing academic papers of high quality at the age of 18, Gauss had been interested in arithmetic and geometric means for 4 years by then, and, by 17, had explored the representation of average values through power series, and the method of least squares. Gauss developed these concepts from a position of great practicality. He used numbers, and especially their patterns, to better understand practical problems. His choice of study at the University of Göttingen was an ideal match for this intellectual curiosity.