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Huh? No, the article says the stonemason chose a star because nobody would be able to tell that a 17-gon isn't a circle. I have heard this story repeated before in Gaussian biographies, but I'm surprised I can't find a single picture online that shows that this did or did not happen.

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The article says the 17-point star is on a monument to Gauss in his home town of Brunswick Germany, not on his headstone.

An image search for "gauss monument brunswick germany" on Duck Duck Go includes a picture of the 17-point star at this link:

https://www.braunschweig.de/leben/stadtportraet/stadtteile/n...

I can't go to it to confirm because we are blocked from going to foreign links at my work place. It looks like the star is on the left side of the monument near his right foot.

Image showing the star on the statue https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Braunschweig_Gauss...

If they made the sides slightly outwardly concave, think an opened bottle cap, it would highlight the vertices and I think that would help people identify it as a polygon rather then a circle --I definitely could be wrong though.

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