“One cannot reduce to concepts the distinction between two systems of three straight lines each (directed lines, of which the one system points forward, upward to the right, the other forward, upward to the left) but one can only demonstrate by holding to actually present spatial things. Two minds cannot reach agreement about it unless their views connect up with one and the same system present in the real world”

— Carl Friedrich Gauss

In a letter to Gerling on June 23, 1846. As quoted in Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science (1955) by Guy Waldo Dunnington. p. 364

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Carl Friedrich Gauss 50

German mathematician and physical scientist 1777–1855

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