Daniel Kehlmann
Hardcover | Pages: 259 pages Rating: 3.73 | 12418 Users | 940 Reviews
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| Original Title: | Die Vermessung der Welt |
| ISBN: | 0375424466 (ISBN13: 9780375424465) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Alexander von Humboldt, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Eugen Gauss, Aimé Bonpland |
| Literary Awards: | Exclusive Books Boeke Prize Nominee (2007), Independent Foreign Fiction Prize Nominee for Shortlist (2008), PEN Translation Prize Nominee for Carol Brown Janeway (2007), Deutscher Buchpreis (German Book Prize) Nominee for Shortlist (2005) |
Chronicle To Books Measuring the World
The young Austrian writer Daniel Kehlmann conjures a brilliant and gently comic novel from the lives of two geniuses of the Enlightenment.Toward the end of the eighteenth century, two young Germans set out to measure the world. One of them, the Prussian aristocrat Alexander von Humboldt, negotiates savanna and jungle, travels down the Orinoco, tastes poisons, climbs the highest mountain known to man, counts head lice, and explores every hole in the ground. The other, the barely socialized mathematician and astronomer Carl Friedrich Gauss, does not even need to leave his home in Göttingen to prove that space is curved. He can run prime numbers in his head. He cannot imagine a life without women, yet he jumps out of bed on his wedding night to jot down a mathematical formula. Von Humboldt is known to history as the Second Columbus. Gauss is recognized as the greatest mathematical brain since Newton. Terrifyingly famous and more than eccentric in their old age, the two meet in Berlin in 1828. Gauss has hardly climbed out of his carriage before both men are embroiled in the political turmoil sweeping through Germany after Napoleon’s fall.
Already a huge best seller in Germany, Measuring the World marks the debut of a glorious new talent on the international scene.
Particularize Containing Books Measuring the World
| Title | : | Measuring the World |
| Author | : | Daniel Kehlmann |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 259 pages |
| Published | : | November 7th 2006 by Pantheon (first published 2005) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Historical. Historical Fiction. European Literature. German Literature |
Rating Containing Books Measuring the World
Ratings: 3.73 From 12418 Users | 940 ReviewsAssess Containing Books Measuring the World
This book was translated into English, with the title Measuring the World.Carl Friedrich Gauß and Alexander von Humboldt were two brilliant scientists who each set out to measure the world. Humboldt decided to travel to remote places, measuring anything and everything on the way. Gauss on the other hand, managed to do his measuring remotely, by means of complex mathematical formulas.First things first, I don't much like biographies. Not sure why exactly, but each and every one ends up boring meIn this novel, we follow the Adventurers/Intellectuals Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Friedrich Gauss. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel at times, yet at other times i literally fell asleep due to boredom. If Daniel Kehlmann would have removed some of the formulas or numbers that did not apply to grasping the concept of the novel, I would have given it a rating of 4, or possibly even a 5 out of 5. This novel did an excellent job of demonstrating the struggles, both physical and emotional that
Die Vermessung der Welt = Measuring the World, Daniel KehlmannMeasuring the World is a novel by German author Daniel Kehlmann, 2005 published by Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek. The novel re-imagines the lives of German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss and German geographer Alexander von Humboldt who was accompanied on his journeys by Aime Bonpland and their many groundbreaking ways of taking the world's measure, as well as Humboldt's and Bonpland's travels in America and their meeting in 1828. One
"I want to explore the world!" That is a quite common answer if you ask a group of motivated preteen students what they want to do when they grow up. Hungry little caterpillars, they eat their way through a mixed diet of knowledge and skills over the course of their education before entering the strange teenage cocoon stage when they can't be bothered with anything but their own physical and social development.As a teacher, you look at all these potential explorers, and their diverse approaches
I don't read a lot of fiction, but this is fictionalised - and appears to contain a lot of fact related to the travel and the science (and mathematics) of the two central characters - Alexander von Humboldt & Carl Friedrich Gauss. Both German, and contemporary, it is not clear to me if they ever met or were colleagues / friends, as they are in this book.Both fascinating men, but very different in their approach to their fields. Humboldt embodies inductive science - based on observation and
Daniel Kehlmnns thoroughly engaging novel Measuring the World follows the exploits of two of historys towering figures of mathematics and natural science in their pursuits to measure the world: Carl Friedrich Gauss and Alexander von Humboldt. Gauss and Humboldt stand starkly opposite in their methods and outlooks. Gauss focuses on numbers and equations (and then later on theoretical physics) while Humboldt delves wholeheartedly into the natural world. The contrast reveals itself most starkly in
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