Carl Friedrich Gauss Carl Friedrich Gauss was a German mathematician and scientist who dominated the mathematical community during and after his lifetime. His outstanding work includes the discovery of the method of least squares, the discovery of non-Euclidean geometry, and important contributions to the theory of numbers. Born in Brunswick, Germany, on April 30, 1777, Johann Friedrich Carl Gauss showed early and unmistakable signs of being an extraordinary youth. As a child prodigy, he was self taught in the fields of reading and arithmetic. Recognizing his talent, his youthful studies were accelerated by the Duke of Brunswick in 1792 when