Gauss and p-adic numbers

Abstract

In his notebooks, Gauss recorded various calculations with "infinite congruences". These infinite congruences are p-adic numbers; Gauss computes a square root of $5$ in the $11$-adic integers in order to find an $11$-adic approximation to a quadratic Gauss sum, computes a nontrivial square root of $1$ in $10$-adic integers, and computes the $10$-adic logarithms of small natural numbers.