Measuring the World by Daniel Kehlmann - Historical Fiction - Paperback

Condition: BRAND NEW. Format: Paperback. ISBN: 9781847241146. Publisher: Quercus. Age Range: Adult Readers. Overview. Measuring the World is Daniel Kehlmann's internationally acclaimed novel reimagining the parallel lives of two towering figures of the German Enlightenment: explorer Alexander von Humboldt and mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss. Blending historical fact with playful invention, this witty, richly imagined story follows two brilliant, eccentric minds as they each set out, in wildly different ways, to measure and understand the world around them.. About the Book. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, two young German geniuses set themselves an extraordinary task: to measure the world. Alexander von Humboldt, a Prussian aristocrat raised for greatness, abandons comfort for adventure, trekking through savannah and jungle, scaling the highest mountain then known to Europeans, cataloguing specimens, counting head lice on the heads of the people he meets, and probing every cave and crevice he can find. Meanwhile, Carl Friedrich Gauss, born into poverty and destined to be remembered as the greatest mathematician since Newton, barely needs to step outside his study in Göttingen to intuit that space itself is curved. He can calculate prime numbers in his head, cannot imagine life without women, and famously leaps from his marriage bed to scribble down a formula. Kehlmann weaves these two extraordinary lives together with sly humour, sharp observation and genuine war...