Student Years in Göttingen, 1795–1798

Abstract

In 1795, at the age of eighteen, Gauss left his native Brunswick to study mathematics at the University of Göttingen, a small town approximately 65 miles to the south. Göttingen, in the state of Hanover, was already “abroad”; Gauss went there against the wish of his Duke, who wanted him to attend the local university of Helmstedt.* Helmstedt was an old school, without much scientific reputation, dominated as it was by its schools of divinity and law. We know that Gauss preferred Göttingen because of its good library,¹ but its reputation as a science-oriented “reform” university may also have contributed to his decision. Göttingen university, founded by King George II of England (who was also Prince of Hanover) after the pattern of Oxford and Cambridge, was better endowed than most other German universities and also more independent of governmental and ecclesiastical supervision and interference. There was not even a school of divinity; instead, the schools of medicine and the natural sciences were cultivated.² As was customary at the German universities, Gauss was completely on his own as a student, a beneficiary of “academic freedom”. There were no regulations as to what lectures to attend, no tutors who worked with him, no examinations or curricular control, not even within the community of the students.^† Gauss had social contacts with several of the professors, among them the physicist Lichtenberg, the astronomer Seyffer, and the linguist Heyne.