Johan M. C. Bartels was more than a teacher of Gauss and Lobachevskij (Q2759871)

This is a study of the life and career of Johann Martin Christian Bartels (born 1769 in Braunschweig [Brunswick], died 1836 in Dorpat [now Tartu]), who was a teacher of Gauss in elementary school. In 1805-1806 both he and Gauss worked in Braunschweig, under the patronage of its duke, Bartels as professor of mathematics, Gauss as director of its observatory. Following the Battle of Jena where their patron was killed, Bartels took up a position at the University of Kazan in the Russian Empire in early 1808, where he turned the attention of the young Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky (1793-1856) to Euclid's Vth postulate, and generally supervised his mathematical development. In this article there is interesting newly-discovered information about Lobachevsky's Polish father, and an indisputable photograph of Lobachevsky. NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEBartels left Kazan for the (German-speaking) university in Dorpat (also in the Russian Empire) in 1820, where he resumed his correspondence with Gauss. The author characterizes Bartels as not only the teacher, but also as the wise older friend of Gauss, Lobachevsky and Senff.NEWLINENEWLINEFor the entire collection see [Zbl 0964.00033].