Gauss, Carl Friedrich

[person]

German mathematician born in Brunswick, Germany (1777 – 1885 CE). Sometimes called the “prince of mathematics,” Gauss made important contributions to many fields of mathematics and science. In his major 1809 work Theoria motus corporum coelestium, Gauss presented several mathematical approaches for addressing the experimental measurement errors that plagued astronomers of the time. These included the method of least squares and a mathematical derivation of the normal distribution.