Measuring the World

Blurb

Prussian aristocrat Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was an indefatigable naturalist and geographer, the first to describe South and Central America scientifically. Carl Gauss (1777-1855) was a mathematician and physicist of genius whose work in number theory, differential geometry and magnetism shaped those fields and many others to this day. Out of these dry bones Daniel Kehlmann has constructed a magnificent novel, which is already a bestseller in his native Germany and elsewhere in Europe.