From "Mathematicians and Poets," by Cai Tianxin, in the April 2011 AMS Notices—
Gauss, “the prince of mathematics”, wrote to tell a
friend, after solving a problem (symbols of Gaussian
summation) that had been bothering him for
years, “Finally, two days ago, I succeeded—not on
account of my hard efforts, but by the grace of the
Lord. Like a sudden flash of lightning, the riddle
was solved. I am unable to say what the conducting
thread was that connected what I previously knew
with what made my success possible.”
Gauss appears also in the results of the search for the phrase "only connect"
in this morning's Ides of Art post.
See as well the Grateful Dead logo in that post, and the following ad
shown today at Secret Blogging Seminar's Oct. 11, 2008, post
"The Sign of the Gauss Sum"—
