By the time he is a teenager, he begins to make groundbreaking mathematical discoveries, and at the age of 21, he writes the Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, a fundamental text in the field of number theory whose influence persists to this day. Despite these humble beginnings, Gauss is a child prodigy who begins correcting adults' math mistakes at the age of three. Born in 1777, Gauss belongs to a poor working-class family and illiterate parents.

By contrast, Gauss comes from wildly different circumstances. In 1796, the death of his stern mother for whom Humboldt has little affection allows him to pursue this dream. Over the next few years, he embarks on various geological and botanical tours financed by the state, but he dreams of traveling to the New World. Groomed for greatness from an early age, Humboldt finds early success as a young scientist helping mining companies to increase their output. Born in 1769 in Prussia, Humboldt belongs to a prominent family of some wealth. Although Gauss and Humboldt meet briefly in the first chapter at the 1828 German Scientific Congress in Berlin, the two characters spend most of the book apart, as the author flashes to each of their early lives then alternates between their stories in each chapter. The book was adapted into a film directed by Detlev Buck in 2012. Their balancing act between loneliness and love, absurdity and greatness, failure and success.German-Austrian author Daniel Kehlmann’s historical novel, Measuring the World (2005), offers a fictionalized account of the lives of the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss and the German geographer Alexander von Humboldt, two figures who in the 19th century developed groundbreaking methods for measuring the Earth. It brings the two eccentric geniuses to life, their longings and their weaknesses. Measuring the World is a novel of rare charm and readability, distinguished by its sly humour and unforgettable characterization. And yet jumps out of bed on his wedding night to jot down a mathematical formula. He can run prime numbers in his head, cannot imagine a life without women.

Does not even need to leave his home in Göttingen to know that space is curved. Gauss, a man born in poverty who will be recognised as the greatest mathematician since Newton. Climbs the highest mountain then known to man, counts head lice on the heads of the natives. Humboldt, a Prussian aristocrat schooled for greatness, negotiates savannah and jungle. Towards the end of the 18th century, these two brilliant young Germans set out to measure the world. The naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt and the mathematician and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauss. Measuring the World recreates the parallel but contrasting lives of two geniuses of the German Enlightenment.

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