Gauss

Articles in this volume are based on talks given at the Gauss-Dirichlet Conference held in Göttingen on June 20-24, 2005. The conference commemorated the 150th anniversary of the death of C.-F. Gauss and the 200th anniversary of the birth of J.-L. Dirichlet.

This book is intended for those who love mathematics, including under­ graduate students of mathematics, more experienced students, and the vast number of amateurs, in the literal sense of those who do something for the love of it. I hope it will also be a useful source of material for those who teach mathematics. It is a collection of loosely connected topics in areas of mathematics that particularly interest me, ranging over the two millennia from the work of Archimedes, who died in the year 212 Be, to the Werke of Gauss, who was born in 1777, although there are some references outside this period.