Curiosities, games, challenges and quiz on various topics
The professor had his students add up all the numbers from one to one hundred, and was amazed to see that young Gauss got the correct answer, 5,050, in a few seconds. What made the boy realize this account so quickly was his ability to observe and calculate that if he added the first number to the last, 1 + 100, he got 101. When he added the second number to the next to last, 2 + 99, The result was also 101. So Gauss discovered that adding all the numbers from one to one hundred was the same as adding 50 times the number 101, which is 5,050. This was the first time that he invented the formula for the sum of arithmetic progressions, as a child. Gauss, who lived between 1777 and 1855, is considered by many to be the greatest mathematical genius of all time, and is therefore known as the Prince of Mathematics.
