-The story of "Prince of Mathematics" Gauss

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.

The epitaph of a mathematician

Some mathematicians devoted themselves to mathematics before their death, and after their death, they carved symbols representing their life achievements on tombstones.

Archimedes, an ancient Greek scholar, died at the hands of Roman enemy soldiers who attacked Sicily. ), people carved the figure of the ball in the cylinder on his tombstone to commemorate his discovery that the volume and surface area of the ball are two-thirds of that of the circumscribed cylinder. After discovering the regular practice of regular heptagon, German mathematician Gauss gave up the original intention of studying literature, devoted himself to mathematics, and even made many great contributions to mathematics. Even in his will, he suggested building a tombstone with a regular 17 prism as the base.

/kloc-Rudolph, a German mathematician in the 6th century, spent his whole life calculating pi to 35 decimal places, which was later called Rudolph number. After his death, someone else carved this number on his tombstone. 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 spiral nature, but also symbolizes his love for mathematics.

Descartes, (1596- 1650), a French philosopher, mathematician and physicist, was one of the founders of analytic geometry. He believes that mathematics is the theory and model of all other sciences, and puts forward a methodology based on mathematics and centered on deduction, which is a philosophy left to future generations. The development of mathematics and natural science has played a great role.

Descartes analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of geometry and algebra, and showed that he wanted to find a method that included the advantages of these two sciences without their disadvantages. This method is to study the geometric problem-analytic geometry by algebraic method. Geometry confirmed Descartes' position in the history of mathematics, and geometry put forward the main ideas and methods of analytic geometry, marking the birth of analytic geometry. Sigmund called it a turning point in mathematics, and later mankind entered the stage of variable mathematics.

Descartes also improved the Vedic symbols. He used A, B, C ... to represent known numbers, and X, Y, Z ... to represent unknown numbers, and created symbols such as "=" and ","which have been used ever since.

Descartes also has many unique features in physics, physiology and astronomy.

Eight-year-old Gauss discovered mathematical theorems.

The famous German scientist Gauss (1777 ~ 1855) was born in a poor family. Gauss learned to calculate by himself before he could speak. When he was three years old, he watched his father calculate his salary one night and corrected his father's calculation mistakes.

When he grew up, he became the most outstanding astronomer and mathematician of our time. He made some contributions to physics electromagnetism, and now a unit of electromagnetism is named after him. Mathematicians call him "the prince of mathematics".

He entered a rural primary school at the age of eight. The teacher who teaches mathematics is from the city. He feels that teaching a few little lynx in remote places is really overqualified. Moreover, he has some prejudices: children from poor families are born fools, and there is no need to teach these stupid children to study hard. If there is an opportunity, they should be punished to add some fun to this boring life.

This day is a depressing day for the math teacher. The students cringed when they saw the teacher's depressed face, knowing that the teacher was going to arrest these students again today and punish them.

"You calculate for me today, from 1 plus 2 plus 3 to 100. Whoever can't figure it out will be punished for not going home for lunch. " The teacher said this, picked up a novel, sat in a chair and read it without saying a word.

The children in the classroom picked up the slate and began to calculate: "1 plus 2 equals 3, 3 plus 3 equals 6, 6 plus 4 equals10 …" Some children added a number to the slate and then erased the result. After adding it, the number is getting bigger and bigger, which is difficult to calculate. Some children's little faces turned red, and some children's palms and foreheads oozed sweat.

Less than half an hour later, little Gauss picked up the slate and stepped forward. "Teacher, is this the answer?"

Without looking up, the teacher waved his thick hand and said, "Go, go back!"! Wrong. " He thought it impossible to have an answer so soon.

But Gauss stood still and put the slate in front of the teacher: "Teacher! I think this answer is correct. "

The math teacher wanted to shout, but when he saw the number written on the slate: 5050, he was surprised because he calculated it himself and got the number of 5050. How did this 8-year-old child get this value so quickly?

Gauss explained a method he discovered, which was used by the ancient Greeks and China people to calculate the sequence1+2+3+…+n. Gauss's discovery made the teacher feel ashamed, and felt that his previous view of being arrogant and belittling poor children was wrong. He also taught seriously in the future, and often bought some math books from the city for his own study and lent them to Gauss. With his encouragement, Gauss later did some important research in mathematics.