Engraved Portraits of Gauss for sale by Acme Klein Bottle!

In 2002, our printer was pushed out of the Gauss Portrait Business by a giant European multi-national conglomerate. Recently, we uncovered a special stash, which are now for sale.

HURRY - NO MORE ARE BEING MADE! OUR SUPPLY IS FINITE, NONZERO, AND COUNTABLE!

Portrait of Gauss really a 10 Deutsche Mark banknote

As a service to those who appreciate the joy of Gaussian Quadrature, Acme has imported a small number of quality portraits of this great mathematician. Now on sale, along with a FREE BONUS!

Seven year old Carl Frederich Gauss amazed his teachers instantly adding all the integers from 1 to 100. Fourteen years later, he made a regular 17-gon by ruler and compass -- the first advance in the field since the ancient Greeks. Then in 1801, he solved the orbit of the newly-discovered asteroid Ceres, by inventing the method of least-squares. In 1818, Gauss surveyed German locations into the Danish geodetic grid. He observed during the day, then calculated positions at night -- astonishing surveyors with his skills. As director of Gottingen Observatory, he developed the fields of hypergeometric functions, potential theory, differential equations, conic sections, terrestrial magnetism, and celestial mechanics. And, of course, he developed the Gaussian Bell Curve, to account for the statistical variation in individual observations of stellar locations. There's hardly a branch of math untouched by Gauss.

In 2001, Acme Klein Bottle's entire staff and management visited Berlin, researching the Kleinsche Flasche. On returning, he discovered several copies of this picture in his pocket. Thanks to this foresight, you can own a picture of this illustrious polymath.

Portrait of Gauss really a 10 Deutsche Mark banknote

Your Gauss portrait comes on a rectangle of high-quality paper, 13cm by 6.5 cm (5inches x 2.5 inches). It's reproduced using the rare multi-color intaglio process and printed on long lasting linen based paper -- a generous 10 microns thick -- using a secret process known only to special government agents. Guaranteed fade-proof ... perfect for framing!

And every portrait includes the following exclusive features:

Unlike your calculus textbook, each portrait of Gauss is guaranteed by the Deutsche Bundesbank, which uses Gaussian mathematical techniques in its business. With a short piece of tape, you can create a compact Möbius loop - an ideal complement to your Acme Klein Bottle.

While almost unknown to Americans, many Europeans have treasured these portraits. Yes, millions of citizens once carried these pictures -- some had collections of five, ten, and even TWENTY portraits. Indeed, thousands of railway workers went on strike to demand portraits of Gauss!

These Portraits of Gauss have been owned by many Professors and Researchers at FAMOUS UNIVERSITIES! Often, mathematicians happily solved tough differential equations in exchange for a few of these pictures. Several Nobel Prize Winners have carried these around in their pockets. And even mathematical illiterates appreciate them as gifts.

Impress your friends - they'll be amazed when they see a real Gaussian DeutschMark! And you'll be ready for the upcoming collapse of the world economy!

Of course, we deliver much more than a portrait of Gauss! You'll also receive a diagram of Göttingen University, as it appeared over 150 years ago. Yes, this famous institution is reproduced right next to Carl Frederich himself -- and it's architecturally more important than the Hubble Space Telescope. It was right here that Felix Klein invented the Klein Bottle in 1872. Look carefully and you may see many mathematicians peeking out of the windows of Göttingen, including Riemann, Bessel, Hilbert, Weber, Runge, Minkowski, Von Neumann, and even August Möbius. (David Hilbert's gravestone in Gottingen reads "Wir müssen wissen. Wir werden wissen." -- "We must know. We will know.") And notice Gauss's fashionable headwear -- similar to Acme's one-sided Klein Bottle Hat!

FREE BONUS! Buy now, and we will include a free equation! This handy relationship lets you calculate the Normal Distribution without a computer. It'll work all the way from -∞<x<∞ ... quite a bit farther than you can bicycle.

But wait - there's more! As an extra bonus, we'll give you a FREE GRAPH of the normal distribution covering plus and minus Three Sigma! Perfect for statistics students and lazy census takers. 

Portrait of Gauss showing distribution graph

Backside of 10 Deutsche Mark banknote

Interested in navigation? Well, on the back of Gauss's portrait, you'll find a diagram for a sextant to help find your place on earth. Make your own - this shows filters, adjustable mirrors, and a small telescope. Forget about those unreliable GPS receivers. Build one like this and never be lost!

This was said to be a Vizheliorop, also called a Heliotrope, invented by Gauss with a mirror to reflect sunlight to an distant observer, to allow surveys across long distances. But, this doesn't look like a heliotrope, which has a large mirror. Rather, it appears to be "Sextant No. 420 by Edward Troughton". Troughton was an English instrument maker in the early 1800's. Apparently, this sextant is now at the First Physical Institute of University of Göttingen and has a handwritten inscription, "Property of Hofraths Gauss" (Another such device is Troughton sextant #420 is found at Melbourne Museum, Australia)

closeup of backside of 10 Deutsche Mark banknote

Included: a miniature geodetic survey section covering the important locations of Falkenberg, Wilsede, Hohenhorn, Hamburg, Bremen, Zeven, and Neuwerk. You'll never get lost in the German state of Niedersachsen: just reach for your portrait of Gauss, and there on the back, in miniature print, you'll find the perfect map. Ideal for spies, politicians, and tax collectors on the run.

Portrait of Gauss watermark

SPECIAL FEATURE! Next to every portrait of Gauss is a second portrait, invisible to most people. By means of a secret method which we will reveal to each purchaser, you can see a ghost-like mirror image of Gauss' portrait. Amaze your friends!

YES, YOU GET TWO PORTRAITS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE!

You can own this miniature portrait of Gauss, complete with the equation, graph, sextant, observatory, signature, geodetic survey, AND THE SECRET SECOND PORTRAIT for only USD $50. Yep, thanks to Acme's volume discount, you get all this for just fifty bucks - cheap at a tenth the price! With the introduction of the Euro, supplies have dried up, so we cannot extend this offer forever. Order now -- you may not regret it!

Although it would be much cheaper to make these ourselves, we have imported these portraits directly from a trusted manufacturer in an Important First World Country. But on Dec 31, 2001, the factory stopped printing them, so our supplies are very limited. NEVER-AGAIN-AVAILABLE!

HAPPY NEWS! Acme Klein Bottle has authorized outlets around the world to exchange your Portrait of Gauss for five Euros and 11 EuroCents. What a deal! Click here for Oanda foreign exchange conversion information)

April 15, 2022: I now have about a dozen Gauss portraits. These are crisp, *UNCIRCULATED* and without any fold marks. Only $50, postpaid - yep, you heard me right - FREE SHIPPING ANYWHERE IN OUR UNIVERSE

THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE! NO MORE GAUSS PORTRAITS WILL EVER BE MADE! These rare portraits are treasured collectors items. In fact, a big European Government is already collecting them for its treasury. So ACT NOW - time is running out on this special offer!

July 1, 2002: According to a poll, 54 percent of Germans wish they had the DeutschMark in their pockets instead of the Euro (they call it the "teuro", a play on words which means "expensive"). Naturally, we at Acme Klein Bottle are perfectly happy to export DeutschMarks to Germany...

 See lots of Klein Bottles on Acme's Home Page

this page last updated by Cliff on 2022-May-2