Farkas BOLYAI (1775-1856). Mathematician, inventor, poet. Studied in Germany (where he met the great mathematician Gauss), was appointed to the college of Marosvásárhely (now Tirgu Mures, Romania) in 1804 as professor of mathematics, physics, and chemistry.
Since Bolyai corresponded with Gauss in German, the two letters were translated from this language as they were published in Franz Schmidt and Paul Stückel, eds., Briefwechsel zwischen Carl Friedrich Gauss und Wolfgang Bolyai (Leipzig, 1899). The letter of 1836 is from pp. 122-24. The letter of 1848 is from pp. 128-31.
Books:
Barna Szénássy: History of Mathematics in Hungary until the 20th Century (Berlin-Heidelberg-New York, 1992);
P. Stäckel: W. und J. Bolyai, Geometrische Untersuchungen (Leipzig, 1913).
Articles:
G. B. Halsted: Biography. Bolyai Farkas [Wolfgang Bolyai], Amer. Math. Monthly 3 (1896), 1-5.;
K.-R. Biermann: Ein Brief von Wolfgang Bolyai (German), Math. Nachr. 32 (1966), 341-346.
Drama:
László Németh: The two Bolyais, The new Hungarian quarterly 1 (1960).
Biographies:
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Bolyai_Farkas.html
htpp://www.mathdaily.com/lessons/Farkas_Wolfgang_Bolyai
http://farkas-bolyai.biography.ms/
Links:
Education and the Sciences / Farkas Bolyai: Two letters to K.F. Gauss
Mathematical Stamps
Autorithy:
Thousand Years of Hungarian Thought