We all have heard the story of the young Guass, summing 1 to 100 by writing the sum backward below the original one.
In this article, just two books are referred for the trick. I looked at both of them but the story was just mentioned briefly without any firsthand reference.
Is this story true and reliable? Is there any good reference proving this?
Thanks.
Brian Hayes, who does the "Computing Science" column for American Scientist, wrote about the Gauss legend in one of his columns in 2006. Brian was particularly interested in variations on the story. A pdf reprint of the column is available here, and additional material, which he's gathered at his blog, is available here and here.
It's worth noting that there is no universal agreement as to exactly what problem Gauss is said to have solved, nor the precise means by which he solved it.