14、THE STORY OF LITTLE GAUSS
One afternoon, a group of boys caused a disturbance in class, prompting the teacher to become angry. In response, he decided to discipline them by keeping them in the classroom after school. He instructed them to calculate the sum of all the numbers from 1 to 100.
The boys brought out their exercise-books. All of them started writing down the numbers, except for one boy who was new in the school. Instead, he gazed out of the window for a few minutes. After that, he recorded a number in his exercise-book and raised his hand.
"Sir, may I go home?" he inquired. "I have found the answer."
The teacher and the rest of the boys were truly amazed.
The teacher said, "Please bring it over here."
The boy brought it to the teacher. Since the answer was correct, the teacher had no choice but to allow the boy to go home.
The next morning, the teacher inquired of the boy, "How did you manage to find the answer so swiftly?"
"Sir," he explained, "I had no intention of staying long. I made every effort to find the answer promptly, and soon enough I did. You see, by adding 100 to 1, you get 101. Similarly, 99 and 2 also add up to 101, as well as 98 and 3. This pattern continues until you reach 51 and 50, where you will have 101 fifty times over. This totals 5050."
Afterwards, when the teacher handed out exercises for the class to complete, he assigned different exercises to one particular boy. The boy's name was Karl F. Gauss, who would later grow up to become a renowned scientist.
