内容简介:
Towards the end of the 18th century, two brilliant young Germans set out to measure the world. The naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, a Prussian aristocrat, negotiates savannah and jungle, counts lice on the heads of the natives and explores every hole in the ground. The mathematician Carol Friedrich Gauss, does not even need to leave his home in Gottingen to know that space is curved. He can run prime numbers in his head, cannot imagine a life without women and yet jumps out of bed on his wedding night to jot down a mathematical formula. A novel of rare charm and readability, Measuring The World brings the two eccentric geniuses to life, their longings and their weaknesses, their balancing act between loneliness and love, absurdity and greatness, failure and success.