Skip to content
eventVerified

Gauss publishes Allgemeine Lehrsätze on potential theory

In 1840 Gauss published Allgemeine Lehrsätze in Beziehung auf die im verkehrten Verhältnisse des Quadrats der Entfernung wirkenden Anziehungs- und Abstossungs-Kräfte, a memoir of potential theory for inverse-square forces. In the causal graph this event strengthens Digital Learning Access, a driver that weakens Learning Poverty Rate (low- and middle-income countries) — an improving welfare path.

Read the full account

In 1840 Gauss published Allgemeine Lehrsätze in Beziehung auf die im verkehrten Verhältnisse des Quadrats der Entfernung wirkenden Anziehungs- und Abstossungs-Kräfte, a memoir of potential theory for inverse-square forces. It is not a power station and not a later Maxwell textbook. He wrote the theorems; readers could copy Green-like identities in Gauss’s language. The row stores one memoir.

Context

Potential theory is a teaching-and-research language for gravity and electrostatics. 1840 is Gauss’s late public contribution to that language, after Green and alongside others. A memoir that still sits in Latin-German academic print is education for those who could read it; popular access is a limit, neighbouring the Latin-gate worsening row. Weber’s Leipzig years are after the 1837 break; this 1840 paper is Gauss’s, not a joint wire. Inverse-square potential is a teaching language, not a power station and not Maxwell’s later treatise.

Confidence is stated on the impact path, not hidden in adjectives. 1840 potential memoir is not a later power grid or electronics. Mixed effects of Gauss publishes Allgemeine Lehrsätze on potential theory are separate paths.

Why it matters

Improving education path: copyable potential theorems. High confidence on 1840. Modest weight. Later electronics and power systems are other authors. Magnetic data papers remain other dates.

That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself.

Who was responsible

Contribution type and responsibility level for each recorded actor — not sole-author shorthand.

  • Carl Friedrich Gauss

    Person

    Direct responsibility

    responsibility level 0.36 · verified

    He wrote the 1840 potential-theory memoir. The academy issued it. Complex author, not a later electrostatics textbook committee.

What changed

Fact → Driver → Indicator. Relationship strength orders the paths; it is not the observed indicator movement.

Evidence

The sources behind this fact and its verification state.

Verified2 sources on file
  1. 1.MacTutor — Carl Friedrich GaussUniversity of St Andrews · High credibility · verified
  2. 2.Göttingen Digitisation Centre — Gauss prints and papersNiedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen · High credibility · verified
What the sources establish

Göttingen’s digitised works include the 1840 Lehrsätze. MacTutor independently lists potential theory among Gauss’s mature publications. Official: https://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/ (opens in a new tab). Independent: https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Gauss/ (opens in a new tab). The records establish a 1840 potential memoir. They do not establish a unique later engineering series. Inverse-square theorems in print are a lesson for readers who had Latin and German academic access; they are not a grid, not electronics, and not the 1832 intensity paper under another title. A contradictory year would change the row.

Established: Gauss published the 1840 Allgemeine Lehrsätze on inverse-square potential. Not established: that he wrote Maxwell’s treatise, or that a power grid is this memoir. A showing of a different first year would change the row.

Shared responsibility is part of Gauss publishes Allgemeine Lehrsätze on potential theory. Naming Carl Friedrich Gauss does not delete co-authors, institutions, or later transmitters. The lag from 1840-01-01 to any measured indicator is not treated as zero. Alternative explanations — weather, other armies, later statutes, or independent cultural change — remain live where the sources do not close them.

If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here.

Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, museums, and adaptations are not converted into extra lifetime acts.

Causal path

How this event connects to drivers and indicators in the graph.

  1. ActorCarl Friedrich Gauss
  2. contributed toFactGauss publishes Allgemeine Lehrsätze on potential theory
  3. strengthensDriverDigital Learning Access
  4. weakensIndicatorLearning Poverty Rate (low- and middle-income countries)

Cite this page

Factrail. (2026). Gauss publishes Allgemeine Lehrsätze on potential theory. Factrail. https://factrail.ai/facts/gs-potential-1840

https://factrail.ai/facts/gs-potential-1840

Accessed 16 October 2026.

By the Factrail desk · Method: how we source and score · Last reviewed

Dispute this factNamed here, or represent someone who is? Request a right of reply.