Carl Friedrich Gauss

Date of Birth:  4/30/1777

Date of Death:  2/23/1855

Birthplace:  Braunschweig, Holy Roman Empire

Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss is famously known in the world of mathematics as a child prodigy.  A famous story of Gauss comes from his days in elementary school.  As the story goes...

The teacher gave the students a list of numbers to add together as a means of "busy work."  For example, the teacher asked the students to add all of the numbers from 1 to 100 together and get a final answer (how long would that take you?).  To the amazement of his teacher and his classmates, Gauss was able to perform this in seconds by using the "trick" below.

1 + 100 = 101, 2 + 99 = 101, 3 + 98 = 101, and so on... Because there are 50 "pairs" that add to 101, the final sum should be 50 x 101 = 5050.

Today, many historians question the validity of this "folk tale."  Regardless, Gauss's brilliance is undeniable.  His largest contributions came in the fields of statistics, analysis, and number theory.

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