In 1853, Gauss asked Riemann, his student, to prepare a "Habilitationsschrift" on the foundations of geometry. Over many months, Riemann developed his theory of higher dimensions and delivered his lecture at Göttingen in 1854 entitled "Ueber die Hypothesen welche der Geometrie zu Grunde liegen]" ("On the hypotheses which underlie geometry"). It was not published until twelve years later in 1868 by Dedekind, two years after his death. Its early reception appears to have been slow, but it is now recognized as one of the most important works in geometry.