Gauss’s personal life was overshadowed by the early death of his first wife, Johanna Osthoff, in 1809, soon followed by the death of one child, Louis. In primary school his teacher tried to occupy pupils by making them add a list of integers. The young Gauss reputedly produced the correct answer within seconds, to the astonishment of his teacher. Gauss’ presumed method, which supposes the list of numbers was from 1 to 100, was to realize that pairwise addition of terms from opposite ends of the list yielded identical intermediate sums: 1 + 100 = 101, 2 + 99 = 101, 3 + 98 = 101, and so on, for a total sum of 50 × 101 = 5050.
More Post
Latest Post
-
Cathodic Protection – a technique for controlling corrosion
-
Electromagnetism – a discipline of physics
-
Astronomers Measure the Heaviest Black Hole Pair ever Discovered
-
Even Passive Smokers are Extensively Colonized by Microbes
-
Webb discovers Proof that a Neutron Star powers the Young Supernova Remnant
-
Flyback Transformer (FBT)