actually the Gaussian Blur in Photoshop uses the mathematical formula derived from the Gaussian curve (aka Bell curve). and the name of the guy who formulated that good ol' curve is Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss. If you are just a bit familiar with statistics (not a lot... just a tad), you might remember the bell curve and other good stuff like
Median, Standard Deviation and Mean which all of them can be viewed from the Histogram window in Photoshop... if you want to mess with math in photoshop [confused] , the histogram window is the place to look at. open up an image, fire up the histogram window and do some math. you might find some interesting stuff sometimes. what is it good for? well.. you find out
anyway.. here is what our good old friend PS does to pixels when you apply Gaussian Blur! B7 . I hope I was clear with that image..