Hide this

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

Die Vermessung der Welt by Daniel Kehlmann
Loading...

Die Vermessung der Welt

by Daniel Kehlmann

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingConversations
1,088493,577 (3.86)44
Loading...
won't like will probably not like will probably like will like will love

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

English (28)  German (13)  Danish (2)  Swedish (2)  French (2)  Spanish (1)  Dutch (1)  All languages (49)
Showing 1-5 of 28 (next | show all)
Das geht gar nicht ...: Tut mir Leid, aber mit diesem Buch konnte ich so überhaupt nichts anfangen. Kurz zuvor hatte ich Alexander von Humboldts "Reise nach Südamerika" (Lamuv-Verlag) gelesen und habe nun gedacht, dass dieses hier mir noch eine wie auch immer geartete Ergänzung dazu bringen könnte. Leider ist das nicht geschehen.

Im Gegenteil, das Buch war eine einzige Enttäuschung. Ich weiß nicht, ob der Autor auf seine Art das Leben und Wirken der beiden genialen Wissenschaftler Humboldt und Gauß einer breiteren Masse bekannter machen wollte. Keine Ahnung ... Und einen tieferen philosophischen Sinn habe ich auch nicht finden können.

Aber glücklicherweise sind die Geschmäcker verschieden. Wer aber die beiden Finnen Arto Paasilinna und Mikael Niemi mag, wird vielleicht auch dieses Buch mögen ...
  r1hard | Nov 22, 2009 |
Beautiful and amusing story about two ways to try to get to grip with the world. Die Vermessung is about trying to handle and keeping on enjoying the amazing comlexity and vastness of our planet in a time Europeans had still white spots on their globe. ( )
  Dettingmeijer | Oct 26, 2009 |
Ich schliesse mich Frau_Lichterloh an, die es auf den Punkt gebracht hat:

Nett, aber nicht nachhaltig. ( )
  MartinRohrbach | Sep 6, 2009 |
A rapid recounting of a couple of the early popular science heroes. Humboldt and Gauss.

A really quickly moving writing style which benefits from being a translation in some kind of hard to pin down way. The prose style is unusual but clear enough and keeps the reader turning the pages rapidly.

The narrative plunges along and so much is left unsaid about ancillary characters and events that if almost feels like a morality tale at times.

So yes I enjoyed it, but no I don't think it was the masterpiece that many of the papers claimed when this book first came out. ( )
  psiloiordinary | Aug 11, 2009 |
Showing 1-5 of 28 (next | show all)
no reviews | add a review
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Series (with order)
Canonical Title
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Awards and honors
Epigraph
Dedication
First words
Quotations
Last words
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (3)

Carl Friedrich Gauss

Daniel Kehlmann

Measuring the World

Book description

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0375424466, Hardcover)

The young Austrian writer Daniel Kehlmann conjures a brilliant and gently comic novel from the lives of two geniuses of the Enlightenment.

Toward the end of the eighteenth century, two young Germans set out to measure the world. One of them, the Prussian aristocrat Alexander von Hum-boldt, negotiates savanna and jungle, travels down the Orinoco, tastes poisons, climbs the highest mountain known to man, counts head lice, and explores every hole in the ground. The other, the barely socialized mathematician and astronomer Carl Friedrich Gauss, does not even need to leave his home in Göttingen to prove that space is curved. He can run prime numbers in his head. He cannot imagine a life without women, yet he jumps out of bed on his wedding night to jot down a mathematical formula. Von Humboldt is known to history as the Second Columbus. Gauss is recognized as the greatest mathematical brain since Newton. Terrifyingly famous and more than eccentric in their old age, the two meet in Berlin in 1828. Gauss has hardly climbed out of his carriage before both men are embroiled in the political turmoil sweeping through Germany after Napoleon’s fall.

Already a huge best seller in Germany, Measuring the World marks the debut of a glorious new talent on the international scene.

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:04 -0400)

(see all 3 descriptions)

The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details.

Quick Links

Ebooks Audio Swap
4 pay2 pay2/94

Popular covers

 

Help/FAQs | About | Privacy/Terms | Blog | Contact | LibraryThing.com | APIs | WikiThing | Common Knowledge | 46,064,823 books!