1966, Chen Jingrun, who lives in a 6-square-meter hut, borrowed a dim kerosene lamp, leaned against the bed board and used a pen to consume several sacks of draft paper. He actually conquered (1+2) in the world-famous mathematical puzzle "Goldbach conjecture", creating a distance from taking off the crown jewel of number theory (1+66). He proved that "every big even number is the sum of the products of a prime number and no more than two prime numbers", which made him a world leader in Goldbach's conjecture research. This result is called "Chen Theorem" internationally and is widely quoted.

This work also enabled him, Wang Yuan and Pan Chengdong to win the first prize of China Natural Science Award with 1978 * *. His achievements in studying Goldbach conjecture and other number theory problems are still far ahead in the world. Avelle, a world-class mathematician and American scholar, once praised him: "Every job in Chen Jingrun seems to be walking on the top of the Himalayas."

2. The short stories of mathematician Jacob Bernoulli.

Jacques Bernoulli, a Swiss mathematician, studied the spiral (known as the thread of life) before his death. After his death, a logarithmic spiral was carved on the tombstone, and the inscription also read: "Although I have changed, I am the same as before." This is a pun, which not only describes the essence of spiral, but also symbolizes his love for mathematics.

3. Mathematician Gauss's short stories

At the age of seven, little Gauss went to primary school. The teacher's name is Butner, and he is a famous local mathematician. This young teacher from the city always thinks that children in the countryside are idiots and their talents can't be displayed. In a math class in grade three, Butner lost his temper with the children again, and then wrote a long list of formulas on the blackboard: 81297+81495+81693+…+100701+69.

"wow! How many figures are there in total? How to calculate? " The more nervous the students are, the more they can't figure out how to calculate.

Butner is very proud. He knew that the last number was 100, which was larger than the previous number 198. Even if these naughty students do their calculations obediently all morning, they won't work out the results.

Unexpectedly, in a short time, Gao Xiaosi came over with a small slate with the answer written on it and said, "Teacher, I have finished the calculation." Without looking up, Butner said angrily, "Go, don't be ridiculous. Anyone who wants to scribble numbers must be careful! " Say that finish, waved a hammer fist.

But little gauss insisted on not leaving and said, "teacher, I'm not kidding." And gently put the small slate on the platform. Butner took one look and was too surprised to speak. Unexpectedly, this 10-year-old child worked out the correct answer so quickly.

It turned out that little Gauss did not add one by one like other children, but observed carefully, used his head and found the law. He found that the sum of two numbers at the beginning and the end of a figure is the sum of 182 196,50, and182196 can be quickly calculated by multiplication.

Little Gauss's incredible mathematical talent made Butner admire and feel guilty. From then on, he never looked down on children from poor families. He bought many math books for little Gauss and asked his young assistant Battier to help little Gauss learn math.