A child prodigy

 

 

Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855), the so-called Prince of Mathematics, was a child prodigy.

He was in elementary school. His teacher, Mr. Bittner, told them to add all the numbers from 1 to 100.

Less than five minutes later, Carl got up, went to the chair, and laid his plate upside down. Mr. Bittner was overcast. He was sure the little one was working on him and told him, but Carl vigorously stated that he had solved the exercise correctly. She let him return to his seat, thinking that when the time came the rod would speak. Out of curiosity, he peeked at the piece of paper with the result he had in his pocket: 5,050. Then he turned Carl's plate: 5,050! But how;!

At school, the teacher held Carl and asked him:

 

"How did you do that and did the addition so quickly?"

 

"I did not add."

 

"But;"

 

"I thought a little bit about the whole series of numbers and found something interesting. From the edges inwards, the pairs gave the same sum: 1 + 100 = 101, 2 + 99 = 101, 3 + 98 = 101 and the rest, up to 50 + 51 = 101. That is, I had 50 pairs with subtotal 101. Instead of adding, I multiplied: 50 × 101 = 5,050 ".

 

Eight years old!

 

Mr. Bittner let him go and later went and found Gebhard Gauss to tell him he was growing a genius. Old Gauss was not impressed because for him only manual labor made sense. Eventually, however, Carl found his way and became one of the greatest mathematicians of all time.