# History of Gauss' Law

Does any one know actual references for the discovery of Gauss' Law (a corollary of the Divergence Theorem)?

The entry in Wikipedia for Divergence Theorem says it was discovered by

 Lagrange 1762, Gauss 1813, Green, 1825


while the entry in Wikipedia for Gauss' law says it was discovered by

 Gauss in 1835,


but not published until 1867.

In the case of the divergence theorem, only dates are given, no references. I couldn't find anything in the collected works of Lagrange around 1762 that seemed to be close to any form of the divergence theorem.

In the case of Gauss' law, a reference is given to the book by Balone, "A Word on Paper: Studies on the Second Scientific Revolution", but no page reference is given; the only index entry for Gauss is a brief mention of his name in connection with some one else; and perusing through the subject matter makes it seem very unlikely that anything about Gauss' law is in this book.

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If Gauss's law was first published in 1867, it must be among the posthumous papers in his Werke. –  Franz Lemmermeyer Jun 17 '11 at 18:24
See also "A history of the divergence theorem" at sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0315086078902124 –  Franz Lemmermeyer Jun 17 '11 at 18:34
Dear Michael Spivak, you could give a look at this paper of Viktor Katz on the subject, I hope it is useful to you.ingelec.uns.edu.ar/asnl/Materiales/Cap03Extras/Stokes-Katz.pdf –  Giuseppe Tortorella Jun 17 '11 at 19:14
The eighth entry in its bibliography is to the paper of 1813 by Gauss. –  Giuseppe Tortorella Jun 17 '11 at 19:24
I've added the "citation needed" template in appropriate places in the Wikipedia article corresponding to facts in the paragraph mentioned by Michael Spivak above. –  Michael Hardy Jun 17 '11 at 23:07