# Gauss publishes Allgemeine Lehrsätze on potential theory

Date: 1840

## The fact

In 1840 [Gauss](/people/carl-friedrich-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. It does not twin every lemma.

## 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. Do not treat later electrical engineering as 1840. Do not treat SI ‘gauss’ as this paper. Do not treat the 1832 intensity memoir as this 1840 title. 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.

## Evidence and sources

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/. Independent: https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Gauss/. 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.

Official or archival record: Göttingen Digitisation Centre — Gauss prints and papers (https://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/; Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen).

## Significance

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. Do not invent a macro energy coefficient.

The attached driver is edu-[digital-learning-access](/drivers/edu-digital-learning-access). The welfare reading used in this dossier is improving. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself.

## What is established and what is not

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.

## People

- Carl Friedrich Gauss: https://factrail.ai/people/carl-friedrich-gauss

## Drivers

- Digital Learning Access: https://factrail.ai/drivers/edu-digital-learning-access

## Sources

- https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Gauss/
- https://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

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