I start with 7, and starting from there, I sing the following numbers mentally up through the fourth note of a particular melody I use just for addition, then determine which number I ended up on.
Yep.
Don’t get me wrong–I’m good at math. Never been quite sure how universal it is for people to be competent at math but unable to do simple arithmetic without counting. But there’s at least one in the world: me.
Please, read the link in my second post above which goes to the article in American Scientist about the story. It gives there what is almost certainly the first version of the story in print, which is almost certainly the version that all later versions are derived from. Note that in the German original of the book where this story is told (which is by Wolfgang Sartorius), Sartorius refers to the problem as being about an arithmetical series in which the standard method (that the other students used) consists of counting, adding, and multiplying. Sartorius doesn’t mention the adding of the numbers 1 through 100. Sartorius doesn’t say that the teacher did this to give the students busywork so that he could do something else. Sartorius doesn’t say that Gauss used a simple method (like adding the numbers in pairs and figuring out the answer by a simple multiplication). He says that Gauss came up with the answer almost instantly.
The more I look at this story, the more I think that it’s apocryphal. People who don’t know much about how mathematicians work think that they have some intuitive computer in their heads that comes up with a solution to a problem without their having to think hard at all. It doesn’t work that way. Being a mathematician is about hard work. It’s necessary to learn the proper techniques. A brilliant mathematician learns those techniques faster than other people, but he doesn’t do mathematics by pure intuition. In particular, no, a mathematician wouldn’t answer the question of the bee flight by pure intuition. He would work something out in his head. He may be able to do that very fast, but it’s not about intuition at all.
Of course. Once you make the teacher into a lazy good-for-nothing, all you need is a shoehorned-in reference to Gauss’ devout christian faith to hit all of the urban legend cliches.
Who made the teacher into a lazy good-for-nothing?
That’s not what I heard. I heard his teacher recognised the genius of what he did and refered him to a Math Prof who then took him under his wing.
something of a hijack, and I suspect many will already know about Gabriel See, but here is today’s prodigy who has been reasonably well care of so far:
Reasonable people do tend to help gifted students. Sometimes the help isn’t effective, I suspect primarily because such things happen so rarely, and I certainly hope that his parents and teachers find the right support for Gabriel.
This. Any idiot can sum a series that’s handed to them, but there’s real insight in realizing that you don’t have to.