Parallel passion to chart conflates two men's lives.(Dispatches)

From: The Sunday Independent (South Africa) | Date: April 29, 2007 | Copyright information

'In September 1828, the greatest mathematician in the country left his home town for the first time in years, to attend the German Scientific Congress in Berlin."

Thus starts this quirky, wry novel, and the laconic, factual tone of the opening is entirely representative of this most deadpan of scientific comedies. The mathematician in question is Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855), and he is about to meet the great explorer, geographer and mapmaker Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859).

Somewhat bizarrely, the copyright page of the novel carries the usual disclaimer: "Any ...

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