On Sat, 30 Mar 2002, Erich Schubert wrote:
> > A little knowledge of series tells me to apply n*(n+1)/2 to sum an > > arithmetic > > progression of common difference 1, starting at 1. This seems even quicker: > > 100*101/2 becomes 5*101*10 becomes 505*10 = 5050. > > Yep, but you aren't teached these formulas when in primary school you > just learned adding and summation... the teacher was said to have > expected his pupils to need the whole lesson for doing this calculation. > And Gauss was born 1777, and he really surprised his teacher by then, > presenting the solution that fast ;) > > BTW: I just checked: gauss added 1+100, 2+99 etc. and got directly to > the calculation 101*50 ;) > The astonishing thing is he did this when he was about 6 years old. Credit should be given to the teacher for immediately recognizing something special about the `peasant' boy in his class. -walter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
