When I got to junior high school at about 11 years old, I had transferred from the same school, from a poor neighborhood to the smart kids' school, because I had high scores on school district-wide testing.
On the first day, I had math class in third period. The teacher had an activity for us, and he explained about a mathematician who was in his math class as a child. He said that this mathematician, as a kid, was asked to add all the numbers from 1 to 100 along with his class... Just as were we going to be challenged with today. The story went that this mathematician was the only kid in his class to use a formula rather than add each number individually, he said.
I thought, cool, and I figured out a formula in that moment: If you take the first number, 1, and the last, 100, that's 101. And if you take the second number, and then the second-to-last number, that's also 101. This pattern should continue...
...So I wrote down: 101*50 = 5050.
The teacher came by and saw the equation and smiled. "Ahh you have heard of this before," he said.
"No, I just thought of it right now!"
He nodded with a grin, saying, "Sure you did," and he walked away.
Why is the sum of the natural numbers from one to one hundred is 50 times 101?
How did Gauss supposedly add the numbers from 1-100? Using this method, can you add only the odd numbers between 1-101?
Sum of all numbers 1 to 100
Why is it that, if you add any sequence of numbers like this (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 7 + 6 + 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1), the sum is always the square of the largest number?
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I tried to answer this question but it seems really hard for me. It is an extra question for my course and it might give me good grade. I need your help guys :). thanks