One of the greatest mathematicians of all time was the German Karl Friedrich Gauss (1777 – 1855). His mathematical discoveries are diverse, but all very complicated. Gauss has always been very easy with math, since he was a child he was always ahead of his classmates. They say that Gauss had a very strict teacher and that he did not accept conversations or games in the classroom. As Gauss was already very good at math and found the teacher's lessons not very interesting, he found himself dispersed in the room. The teacher, seeing that Gauss was not paying attention to the explanations, decided to impose a punishment: add all the numbers from 1 to 100, so that Gauss could spend hours and hours doing the calculations and not disturb his class.
But the professor didn't count on Gauss's ability to do math. In a few minutes, Gauss added up all the numbers from 1 to 100, leaving the professor stunned.
The professor asked how he had gotten the answer so quickly and Gauss went to explain.
See how Gauss performed these calculations so quickly and accurately:
Imagine that we are going to add the numbers from 1 to 10.
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10
Gauss had the following thought: "add the first to the last, the second to the second to last, and so on." Watch:
1 + 10 =11
2 + 9 =11
3 + 8 =11
4 + 7 =11
5 + 6 = 11
So 5 x 11 = 55 which is the sum of all the numbers from 1 to 10.
He used this reasoning to calculate the sum of numbers from 1 to 100. Look:
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 +... + 96 + 97 + 98 +99 + 100
1 + 100 = 101
2 + 99 = 101
3 + 98 = 101
4 + 97 = 101
5 + 96 = 101
.
.
.
Noting that it was enough to do 50 x 101 = 5050
Smart ass, this Gauss!
By Marcelo Rigonatto
Mathematical
Kids School Team
