The genius of Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) and the novelty of his work (published in Latin, German, and occasionally French) in areas as diverse as number theory, probability and astronomy were already widely acknowledged during his lifetime. But it took another three generations of mathematicians to reveal the true extent of his output as they studied Gauss' extensive unpublished papers and his voluminous correspondence. This posthumous twelve-volume collection of Gauss' complete works, published between 1863 and 1933, marks the culmination of their efforts and provides a fascinating account of one of the great scientific minds of the nineteenth century. Volume 11 Part I, which appeared in 1927, supplements volumes 5 to 7 with additional material on physics (particularly magnetism) and both theoretical and practical astronomy. It also contains a substantial amount of scientific correspondence with scholars including Schumacher, Olbers and Bessel.
