Like many other authors and television shows ( Big Bang Theory, anyone?), this novel depicts these two highly intelligent men as emotionally distant, often rude jerks. Unfortunately, he is also an ass to those around him, especially when he feels they think too slowly to keep up with him.Īlternating between the stories of these two men, Kehlmann tells an ironic, drily humorous story that is as much about science as it is about interpersonal relationships and learned German society in the early 19th century. All of this is described in letters to his brother, a high-ranking politician in Germany, which are published in the newspapers.Ĭarl Friedrich Gauss has an innate capacity for numbers that allows him to make the greatest mathematical discoveries since Newton, in fields ranging from algebra to geodesy to astronomy. He sets off for South America with the goal of discovering the inland connection between the Orinoco and Amazon rivers, observing air pressures at different altitudes, and determining whether the earth is really made up of water. Originally 2005, I read 2007 Quercus hardcoverĪlexander von Humboldt is an obsessive, highly trained all-around scientist who constantly measures, observes, and records all kinds of data. Translated by Carol Brown Janeway (German)
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