Measuring the World
Daniel Kehlmann
Translated from German by Carol Brown Janeway
Publisher: Quercus, London 2007
Pages: 259, Category: Fiction
Towards the end of the 18th century, in the heyday of German enlightenment, two brilliant yound Germans set out to measure the world. The naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt and the mathematician and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauss. Humboldt explored the savannah and jungle, travelled down the Orinoco river, climbed the highest mountain then known to man and explored every hole in the ground and Gauss, a man born in poverty and recognised as the greatest mathematician since Newton, did not even leave his country to know that space is curved.
Though the publisher claims it to be a German best seller, the weak plot and poorly crafted characters fails to impress. Though the author claims that there is no relation whatsoever between the characters and historical personnae, most of the incidents are recorded in history. The author has peppered some of the occurrences with intimate acts of purely personal call like Gauss' first night with his wife, Johanna. The book failed to impress.
There are some interesting anecdotes though. Gauss, known as the Prince of Mathematics, excelled at a very small age. When the teacher asked the young Gauss to find the sum of all numbers from 1 to 100, he came up with the surprising answer of 5050 in a matter of seconds. His reasoning was, 1+100=101, 2+99=101, 3+98=101, ...... So, there will be 50 times 101 and hence the answer is 5050. Clever, indeed from an 8 year old boy!!
Overall Rating: 2/5
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