Description: Lithograph from 1828 by Siegfried Detlev Bendixen showing a portrait of the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss at the age of 50 Source httpcommonswikimediaorgwikiFileBendixenCarlFriedrichGau1828jpgFrom enwikipediaorgwikiCarlFriedrichGauss Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss as German Gau pronounced as Latin Carolus Fridericus Gauss 30 April 1777 23 February 1855 was a German mathematician who contributed significantly to many fields including number theory algebra statistics analysis differential geometry geodesy geophysics mechanics electrostatics astronomy matrix theory and opticsSometimes referred to as the Princeps mathematicorum Latin the foremost of mathematicians and greatest mathematician since antiquity Gauss had an exceptional influence in many fields of mathematics and science and is ranked as one of historys most influential mathematiciansYes he was all that and a lot more But my favorite story is from his childhood It is said one day his math teacher needed to do some work instead of teaching so at the beginning of the lesson he told the pupils to add up the numbers from 1 to 100 They starting working and the teacher started doing whatever it was he needed to do But just a few minutes later young Karl raised his hand and said the numbers added up to 5050 The teacher just shook his head and told Karl not to fibCloser to an hour later other pupils started raising their hands and they also said the result was 5050 The teacher then asked Karl how he could calculate the result so quickly Karl said that 1100101 2991013981015051101 There were fifty such pairs that added up to 101 each Therefore the sum of the numbers from 1 to 100 equals 50 times 101 and that is 5050 DuhWhether the story is true or not that is the basis of Gauss algorithm for adding any sequence of numbers starting anywhere and ending anywhere else And it shows Gauss would make an amazing computer programmer because this type of problem solving is the heart of computer programming
By: AdamStanislav
Date: 2016-06-07
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Karl Friedrich Gauss sourced from Openclipart is licensed under CC0 1.0
* Note: Date might not match original source and might be an educated guess.