This is the power of a shortcut - doesn’t matter what number, the way of thinking will get you to the answer. So that’s 50 times 101, which is 5,050. If the teacher came back and tried to give him an even greater challenge, “Okay, what about the numbers from one to a million,” that’d be taking the rest of the class ages. So you’ve got 50 pairs of numbers adding up to 101.
The book of life no matter where you are plus#
So one plus 100 is 101, two plus 99 is also 101, three plus 98, 101. I combined the beginning and the end of the journey. According to the story, here’s what Gauss told his teacher:ĭU SAUTOY: He said, “Look, the rest of the class, they’re all starting at the beginning and just plodding on through this journey. You may be thinking, well, Gauss is plainly a math prodigy, so he just added up the numbers in his head really fast. I’ll give you a minute.Īre you done? If not, then you are quite a bit slower than young Gauss.ĭU SAUTOY: Carl Friedrich Gauss immediately writes down a number on his chalkboard, slams it down on the desk and says, “There it is.” The teacher thinks he’s being impudent but looks down and sees - “But that’s the correct answer, how did you get that so quickly?” The teacher says:ĭU SAUTOY: “You’ve got to add up the numbers from one to 100.” And most of the class set off and they go one plus two, that’s three, plus three, six. As Du Sautoy said, it’s not a particularly interesting problem. And the teacher gives the class this problem to solve. At the time of our story, he’s just a very bright young student. There are more than 100 theorems, formulas, models, and other math terms named after him. Young Carl Friedrich Gauss would become one of the most remarkable mathematicians in history. The story takes us back to Germany in the late 18th century, and a schoolboy named Carl Friedrich Gauss.ĭU SAUTOY: The young Gauss, sitting - 8, 9 years old in his class, the teacher wants to get a little bit of rest, decides to set them a problem that it will take them ages to actually do.
As for this fairy tale:ĭU SAUTOY: I don’t know whether it’s true or not, but who cares? That’s Marcus du Sautoy, who is a mathematician, at Oxford University in England. Marcus DU SAUTOY: This is a little fairy tale that we all get told as mathematicians. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post. Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for readability. Listen and follow our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Our latest installment of the Freakonomics Radio Book Club.
You know the saying: “There are no shortcuts in life.” What if that saying is just wrong? In his new book Thinking Better: The Art of the Shortcut in Math and Life, the mathematician Marcus du Sautoy argues that shortcuts can be applied to practically anything: music, psychotherapy, even politics.
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