Gauss replied, when asked how soon he expected to reach certain mathematical conclusions, that he had them long ago, all he was worrying about was how to reach them!
In Mechanisms of Discovery in I. S. Gordon and S. Sorkin (eds.) The Armchair Science Reader, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1959.
The Enigmatic Number e: A History in Verse and Its Uses in the Mathematics Classroom
by Sarah Glaz (University of Connecticut)
Links to Resources: Biographies and Topics
Biographies
The hyperlinks to biographical information in the poem's text are from the excellent source: J.J. O'Connor and E.F. Robertson, The MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Additional biographical and historical links are provided below for variety and pedagogical usefulness.
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org) is a rich online source of information about most of the topics mentioned in the poem. Unfortunately, Wikipedia's open-editing policy makes the accuracy of the information on its site uncertain. For this reason we provide links to different online sources. Whenever possible, we have chosen sites where the information is presented with students and educators in mind.