Daniel Kehlmann, Measuring the World

Measuring the World

Daniel Kehlmann

Pantheon, November 2006, $23.00

ISBN: 0375424466

In 1769, Alexander von Humboldt was born; in 1777, Carl Friedrich Gauss was born; both in Germany. Humboldt became a renowned naturalist, visiting the globe to map unknown territories and find new flora and fauna; Gauss became a renowned mathematician, staying at home to map unknown mathematical relationships and write treatises. These two have nothing in common except their heritage. They meet in 1828 at a science convention, with neither thinking much of how the other lives life. Somehow they become friends, though they share nothing in common, not even a vision; as the outdoors man sees joy in being a scientist today, while the indoors-man sees how much his world is limited, as he extrapolates what the future will hold.

This is a superb work of biographical fiction that uses comparative analysis to look deep into the lives of two giants of the early nineteenth century. Humboldt and Gauss are very different in personality, as the former needs to explore nature first hand, while the latter needs to explore numbers in his room. Bringing alive Napoleonic and Post Napoleonic Germany, as well to a lesser degree, other locations visited by Humboldt, Daniel Kehlman provides a strong historical tale that measures up well with other genre entries.