Reviews for The Prince of Mathematics: Carl Friedrich Gauss

The average rating for The Prince of Mathematics: Carl Friedrich Gauss based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-02-15 00:00:00 Terry Davis What I wanted from this book was more information about Gauss's discoveries, but it barely scraped the surface. Instead it's mostly filler material: fake conversations, useless trivia etc. The characters keep saying "I wonder if -this- and -that- will happen in the future", for instance motorized carriages and other things that have been discovered since then. Also, when Gauss's wife gave birth to an above average sized child, the author added that nowadays people would have linked the large size of the kid with the mother having diabetes. Those two are examples of the sort of useless filler material that got me really frustrated. Gauss did a lot of cool things and this book barely mentions most of them. It reads like both a below-average book that's been written for kids as well as one that's for adults, but has been badly translated. It was just awful and not worth my time even if the book was short.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-08-20 00:00:00 Todd Nichols I enjoyed reading this book. I know that it didn't go into great detail about the mathematical discoveries, but it also showed that he wasn't just some mathematician locked away in a chamber doing math 24/7. I mean, yes, he certainly dedicated so much time and energy in his work, but he was a family man, and he dearly loved his wife and children. My heart went out to him when he didn't see his dad again after a few sad words. Anyway, no more spoilers. Enjoy!