Carl Friedrich Gauss

mathematician · 2 mentions across 2 readings

In this course

Gauss appears here primarily as a literary figure rather than a historical mathematician—invoked in the first excerpt as an exemplary proper name within a discussion of mathematical abstraction and linguistic reference (how numbers might be defined through classes of similar entities), and then reimagined in the second as a character in a speculative fiction scenario involving memory erasure and domestic drama. The readings use him to probe the boundary between abstract mathematical thinking and narrative embodiment, suggesting how the same figure can operate both as a tool for formal logic and as a subject of imaginative intervention.

Mentioned in 2 readings

I.J. Good

Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine

integer, for example, “3” can be defined as the class of all classes “similar” to the class consisting of the words “Newton,” “Gauss,” and “Bardot.”) The point of this representation is that it makes reference to linguistic operations alone…

qntm

from There Is No Antimemetics Division

"Fill in his backstory," she tells them. "He was never married. Relocate him to where I'll never find him, incinerate all the evidence, then report to me for surgical memory erasure. I'll do myself last." Gauss looks as if he has an object…

Appears alongside

People mentioned in the same passages — sorted by co-occurrence weight.

Bertrand Russell 1 Brigitte Bardot 1 Gottlob Frege 1 Isaac Newton 1 Paul Halmos 1 Hutchinson 1 Wheeler 1