| The need for a Gauss bibliography has been felt keenly for some time, by the occasional user of Gauss material as well as the specialist in Gauss-related areas. The decision to remedy this situation was made at the Second Annual Symposium on the History of Mathematics held at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of History and Technology. This meeting took place in 1977, the Gauss bicentenary. In preparing for the symposium, most participants had experienced the frustration associated with obtaining firm information about the man frequently referred to as "one of the three greatest mathematicians of all time." The customary difficulties of establishing the history, let alone the validity, of commonly held notions about a major figure are compounded in the case of Gauss. Lack of an index encumbers the user of the Werke , whose arrangement by topics is so rigidly imposed that it results in fragmentation not only of individual notes or letters but of connected concepts. This makes an inquiry into individual or conceptual relationships or other historical study difficult. Similarly, the lack of indexes to most of the published correspondence, the lack of listings of available translations, and the lack of any guide through the growing list of secondary literature with its repetitions of facts and fables add to the burden of the researcher. |
| It was decided that the situation could best be remedied by compiling a bibliography that would include a list of primary sources and translations, a guide to the letters, and an extensive listing of secondary sources, placing special emphasis on those secondary works pertaining to the history of mathematics. It was also suggested that listings of general works on the history of mathematics be annotated to indicate their usefulness. In addition it was agreed that some abstracting or keyword indexing be done, but that no more than two years should be spent on research, and that suitable limitations should be imposed to ensure issuance of the bibliography within a few years. |
| In planning the project within these guidelines, I chose the following course: |
| An attempt was made to obtain a listing of all work by Gauss published either in his lifetime or posthumously, along with reissues and translations into languages other than the original. In treating these I chose to exclude a physical description of the editions; in other words, this volume contains bibliographic checklists, not a bibliography in the strictly technical sense. |
| In dealing with Gauss's letters, I attempted to capture all published letters and all letters held in the Handschriftenabteilung of the Niedersaechsische Staats-und Universitaetsbibliothek in Goettingen. No effort was made to itemize letters addressed to Gauss, although known correspondents are listed in the index of persons known to Gauss, along with the number and date range of extant letters known to have been written to him by these individuals. In compiling these summaries, I relied heavily on the itemized listing of the Gauss |
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