Many of Gauss's mathematical achievements were discovered only after his death. From March 30th, 1796, Gauss made a regular polygon of 17 with a ruler, and began to write a scientific diary for a long time until July 9th, 18 14. Gauss's scientific diary was borrowed from Gauss's grandson by the Royal Society of G? ttingen in 1898 to study Gauss. Since then, the contents of this scientific diary have been spread to 43 years after Gauss's death. This diary *** 146 research results, because only for personal use, so each record is often written in a few words, very short. Some projects are so simple that even experts are confused.
Wild pea 1796 65438+ 10/0/
1April 8, 799, Pastor Galen
The results of these two studies are still a mystery.
On July 1796 10, there was a diary like this:
Ευρηκα! num=△+△+△
ε υ υ η κ α is found in Greek. At that time, Archimedes suddenly discovered the law of buoyancy while taking a bath, jumped up excitedly from the bathtub and ran wildly in the street shouting "ε υ υ η κ α!" "Gauss found the proof of a difficult theorem put forward by Fermat here: every positive integer is the sum of three triangular numbers.
Once Gauss's scientific diary was published, it caused a sensation in the whole scientific community. People learned for the first time that many important achievements were actually discovered by Gauss a long time ago, but they were published very late, and some were not even published at all. It was not until the diary was published that people knew the double periodicity of elliptic function, so that this great achievement fell asleep in the diary 100 years. A diary of1March 9 1797 clearly shows that Gauss discovered this achievement; Later, there was another one, which showed that Gauss further realized the general double periodicity. This problem was independently developed by Jacobi (1804- 185 1) and Abel, and later became the core of19th century function theory. Similar examples are too numerous to mention.
So many important discoveries have been buried in the diary for decades or even a century! Faced with this incredible fact, mathematicians were shocked. If these contents are published in time, it will undoubtedly bring unprecedented honor to Gauss, because any achievements in the diary were world-class at that time. If these contents are published in time, later mathematicians can be prevented from struggling in many important fields, and the history of mathematics will be greatly rewritten.
The social environment at that time and Gauss's personal character
Why is this happening? This has a very important relationship with the social environment at that time and Gauss's personal character.
/kloc-in the 0/8th century, there was a fierce debate in the field of mathematics. Mathematicians hold their own opinions and blame each other. Due to the lack of strict argument, various mistakes appeared in the debate. In order to prove their arguments, they often brag and satirize each other, which left a deep impression on Gauss. Although Gauss was born in poverty, like his parents, he had a strong self-esteem and was extremely cautious about scientific research, which made him not publish this diary before his death. He believes that these research results need further argumentation. His motto in scientific research is "less is better than more".
Gauss's rigorous academic attitude made later scientists pay a huge price, but it also brought benefits to scientific research. Gauss's published works are still as correct and important as the first publication. His publication is code, which is better than other human codes, because it will not be found to have any problems whenever and wherever.
Gauss's attitude towards learning is like a motto in King Lear, which he neatly wrote under his portrait:
"Nature, you are my goddess, and I will obey your law all my life."
Gauss's achievements in the field of mathematics are enormous. Later, when people asked him the secret of his success, he replied in his unique humble way:
"If others think about the truth of mathematics as deeply and persistently as I do, they will also find my discovery."
In order to prove his conclusion, he once pointed to a question on page 633 of Arithmetic Research and said emotionally:
"People say I am a genius, don't believe it! You see, this question only takes a few lines, but it took me four years. I haven't thought about its symbol for almost a week in four years. "