a student of carl friedrich gauss and an assistant to gauss at the university observatory, goldschmidt frequently collaborated with gauss on various mathematical and scientific works. goldschmidt was in turn a professor of gauss's protegé bernhard riemann. data gathered by gauss and goldschmidt on the growth of the logarithmic integral compared to the distribution of prime numbers was cited by riemann in "on the number of primes less than a given magnitude", riemann's seminal paper on the prime-counting function.