It was Alexander von Humboldt who convinced Gauss to conduct research in magnetism. Here is a quotation from Gauss, in his Intensitas vis magneticae terrestris ad mensuram absolutam revocata, Chapter 5 of Wilhelm Weber’s Main Works on Electrodynamics Translated into English,
Volume I: Gauss and Weber’s Absolute System of Units, edited by André Koch Torres Assis (Montreal: Apeiron, 2021):
For the first light thrown upon this subject we are indebted to the Baron Humboldt, whose attention was particularly directed to it during all his travels, and who has furnished a considerable series of observations, from which the gradual increase of this intensity, from the magnetic equator of the earth towards the magnetic poles, has been deduced. Many observers have since followed the footsteps of that great naturalist; and almost every part of the world to which, in recent times, travellers have penetrated, has furnished its quota of materials, from which already Hansteen (to whom this branch of philosophical inquiry is under great obligation) has been enabled to attempt the construction of an iso-dynamical chart.
It was Alexander von Humboldt who convinced Gauss to conduct research in magnetism. Here is a quotation from Gauss, in his Intensitas vis magneticae terrestris ad mensuram absolutam revocata, Chapter 5 of Wilhelm Weber’s Main Works on Electrodynamics Translated into English,
Volume I: Gauss and Weber’s Absolute System of Units, edited by André Koch Torres Assis (Montreal: Apeiron, 2021):
For the first light thrown upon this subject we are indebted to the Baron Humboldt, whose attention was particularly directed to it during all his travels, and who has furnished a considerable series of observations, from which the gradual increase of this intensity, from the magnetic equator of the earth towards the magnetic poles, has been deduced. Many observers have since followed the footsteps of that great naturalist; and almost every part of the world to which, in recent times, travellers have penetrated, has furnished its quota of materials, from which already Hansteen (to whom this branch of philosophical inquiry is under great obligation) has been enabled to attempt the construction of an iso-dynamical chart.
We see that Gauss is first and foremost human, using his mathematical talents to correctly deduce his birthdate.
I would of loved to the look on his teachers face when he correctly deduced the 5050 answer to the math problem.