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The fascinating story of a young Maths Prodigy

By Muaz Aqdas


Many of you may know about the formula for the addition of  'n' Natural Numbers which is (n)(n+1)/2.

And if you don't, then let me tell you about it. So if you want to add consecutive Natural Numbers, then you would use the formula (n)(n+1)/2 where n is the number up to which you want to do addition.

Let's take an example. I want to add all the natural numbers from 1 to 50, then here n would be 50, and the answer would be (50)(50+1)/2 which is 1275. 

Now it got a little boring, so allow me to tell you a great story behind this small equation, an equation's story, all of you will find intriguing.      


In the late 18th century there was math prodigy named Carl Friedrich Gauss who was faced with a tedious problem, the addition of numbers from 1 to 100.


But the fascinating thing was he figured a way around it. He made an equation to add natural numbers from 1 to any no. by the person's choice.


He saw a pattern, something humans are doing from the very beginning, well its a topic we would discuss someday, 

He saw that, during the addition of no. from 1 to 100, if we add first and the last no. we get a sum of 101 and on adding second and second last no. we again get a sum of 101 ..by seeing this, he got the pattern. 

The sum of corresponding numbers from the beginning and the end was the same, and that sum, which was -the number up to which we are adding(or you can say the last number) plus 1, was coming half the time of the last number.

 And thus the equation. (n)(n+1)/2. You can check the pattern by yourself. 

And it seems pretty easy for us because we know the equation now, but Carl was just a young student, and finding the pattern and getting to the end of his question's journey was really fascinating and admirable. So I thought it would be worth sharing with you all.

Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss was a German mathematician and physicist who made significant contributions to many fields in mathematics and science. But I found this story of his, really amazing.


I hope you all liked the story. Share it with your friends and family, with those who have a mathematic background and with those too, who don't. 

And share your views in the comment section below.

Cause the sky is the only limit. Embrace yourself. 

You can do anything if you have a strong will for doing it.


And remember there is always a pattern, you just need to find it. 



source: NCTM

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