Carl Friedrich Gauss
Professor in Göttingen

In November 1807, Gauss followed a call to the University of Göttingen, then an institution of the newly founded Kingdom of Westphalia under Jérôme Bonaparte, as full professor and director of the astronomical observatory, and kept the chair until his death in 1855. He was soon confronted with the demand for two thousand francs from the Westphalian government as a war contribution, which he could not afford to pay. Both Olbers and Laplace wanted to help him with the payment, but Gauss refused their assistance. Finally, an anonymous person from Frankfurt, later discovered to be Prince-primate Dalberg, paid the sum.

Gauss took on the directorate of the 60-year-old observatory, founded in 1748 by Prince-elector George II and built on a converted fortification tower, with usable, but partly out-of-date instruments. The construction of a new observatory had been approved by Prince-elector George III in principle since 1802, and the Westphalian government continued the planning, but Gauss could not move to his new place of work until September 1816. He got new up-to-date instruments, including two meridian circles from Repsold and Reichenbach, and a heliometer from Fraunhofer.

The scientific activity of Gauss, besides pure mathematics, can be roughly divided into three periods: astronomy was the main focus in the first two decades of the 19th century, geodesy in the third decade, and physics, mainly magnetism, in the fourth decade.

Gauss made no secret of his aversion to giving academic lectures. But from the start of his academic career at Göttingen, he continuously gave lectures until 1854. He often complained about the burdens of teaching, feeling that it was a waste of his time. On the other hand, he occasionally described some students as talented. Most of his lectures dealt with astronomy, geodesy, and applied mathematics, and only three lectures on subjects of pure mathematics. Some of Gauss's students went on to become renowned mathematicians, physicists, and astronomers: Moritz Cantor, Dedekind, Dirksen, Encke, Gould, Heine, Klinkerfues, Kupffer, Listing, Möbius, Nicolai, Riemann, Ritter, Schering, Scherk, Schumacher, von Staudt, Stern, Ursin; as geoscientists Sartorius von Waltershausen, and Wappäus.

Gauss did not write any textbook and disliked the popularization of scientific matters. His only attempts at popularization were his works on the date of Easter (1800/1802) and the essay Erdmagnetismus und Magnetometer of 1836. Gauss published his papers and books exclusively in Latin or German. He wrote Latin in a classical style but used some customary modifications set by contemporary mathematicians.

In his inaugural lecture at Göttingen University from 1808, Gauss claimed reliable observations and results attained only by a strong calculus as the sole tasks of astronomy. At university, he was accompanied by a staff of other lecturers in his disciplines, who completed the educational program; these included the mathematician Thibaut with his lectures, the physicist Mayer, known for his textbooks, his successor Weber since 1831, and in the observatory Harding, who took the main part of lectures in practical astronomy. When the observatory was completed, Gauss took his living accommodation in the western wing of the new observatory and Harding in the eastern one. They had once been on friendly terms, but over time they became alienated, possibly – as some biographers presume – because Gauss had wished the equal-ranked Harding to be no more than his assistant or observer. Gauss used the new meridian circles nearly exclusively, and kept them away from Harding, except for some very seldom joint observations.

Brendel subdivides Gauss's astronomic activity chronologically into seven periods, of which the years since 1820 are taken as a "period of lower astronomical activity". The new, well-equipped observatory did not work as effectively as other ones; Gauss's astronomical research had the character of a one-man enterprise without a long-time observation program, and the university established a place for an assistant only after Harding died in 1834.

Nevertheless, Gauss twice refused the opportunity to solve the problem by accepting offers from Berlin in 1810 and 1825 to become a full member of the Prussian Academy without burdening lecturing duties, as well as from Leipzig University in 1810 and from Vienna University in 1842, perhaps because of the family's difficult situation. Gauss's salary was raised from 1000 Reichsthaler in 1810 to 2400 Reichsthaler in 1824, and in his later years he was one of the best-paid professors of the university.

When Gauss was asked for help by his colleague and friend Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel in 1810, who was in trouble at Königsberg University because of his lack of an academic title, Gauss provided a doctorate honoris causa for Bessel from the Philosophy Faculty of Göttingen in March 1811. Gauss gave another recommendation for an honorary degree for Sophie Germain but only shortly before her death, so she never received it. He also gave successful support to the mathematician Gotthold Eisenstein in Berlin.

Gauss was loyal to the House of Hanover. After King William IV died in 1837, the new Hanoverian King Ernest Augustus annulled the 1833 constitution. Seven professors, later known as the " Göttingen Seven ", protested against this, among them his friend and collaborator Wilhelm Weber and Gauss's son-in-law Heinrich Ewald. All of them were dismissed, and three of them were expelled, but Ewald and Weber could stay in Göttingen. Gauss was deeply affected by this quarrel but saw no possibility to help them.

Gauss took part in academic administration: three times he was elected as dean of the Faculty of Philosophy. Being entrusted with the widow's pension fund of the university, he dealt with actuarial science and wrote a report on the strategy for stabilizing the benefits. He was appointed director of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Göttingen for nine years.

Gauss remained mentally active into his old age, even while suffering from gout and general unhappiness. On 23 February 1855, he died of a heart attack in Göttingen; and was interred in the Albani Cemetery there. Heinrich Ewald, Gauss's son-in-law, and Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen, Gauss's close friend and biographer, gave eulogies at his funeral.

Gauss was a successful investor and accumulated considerable wealth with stocks and securities, finally a value of more than 150 thousand Thaler; after his death, about 18 thousand Thaler were found hidden in his rooms.
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