Beschreibung:

GAUSS ON THE MOTION OF THE STARS AND THE SUN.GAUSS, CARL FRIEDRICH 1777-1855. Autograph Letter Signed ("C.F. Gauss") to Friedrich Argelander on his recently published star and solar data, 4 pp, tall 8vo (230 x 135 mm), bifolium, Göttingen, February 16, 1838, pages mildly toned and creased, lower right corners bumped.
AN IMPORTANT GAUSS LETTER ON RELATIVE MOVEMENT OF THE STARS AND THE SUN TO FELLOW ASTRONOMER FREDERICK ARGELANDER, constituting "what seems to be the earliest attempt to estimate the average peculiar motions of the stars in terms of the solar motion" (Plummer). Gauss, the "Prince of Mathematicians" and a polymath, is responding to the publication of Argelander's "ingenious investigation" Über die eigene Bewegung des Sonnensystems, "one of the few theoretical works in which Argelander found the basis of his observations conclusive enough to make certain deducations" (DSB). According to the letter, Gauss compared a vast amount of data from his own calculations and observations from the period of 1822-1823 to the data provided by Argelander, finding that the two sets matched to a remarkable degree. Gauss's only complaint is that Argelander did not provide the full data in his published tables.
Argelander (1799-1875) was the first astronomer to perform detailed work on variable stars, establishing it as an independent branch of astronomy. This fantastic Gauss letter is very, well, Gauss-ian, evincing his genius, his fastidiousness, as well as his sharply critical sensibility. The basis for Henry Plummer's 1912 study "On a Letter from Gauss to Argelander," Gauss letters of this caliber are rare in the market. See Plummer, H.C. "On a Letter from Gauss to Argelander," Astronomische Nachrichten 193:14, pp 261-4 (regarding this letter).