Gauss

Legend has it when the famous mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss was in primary school his (mean, lazy, etc…) math teacher gave the class the assignment of adding up the first 100 positive integers. So 1+2+3+4+…+97+98+99+100=? He then sat back at his desk with a (mean, lazy etc…) look on his face while the students toiled away, doomed for the next few minutes to tides of elementary addition. Well all of his students except for Gauss. After a couple minutes Gauss approached his (mean, lazy, etc…) teacher with the correct answer, 5050. How’d he do it!?

There are several theories about how he might have conceptualized his addition shortcut, but I’ll explain the most common here. The brilliant young Gauss saw that 100+1=101, and 99+2=101, and 98+3=101. Little Gauss had discovered a pattern! By looking at the middle two numbers (50+51=101) he reasoned that there were 50 such pairs with sum of 101, thus the simple multiplication 101*50=5050 yields the desired summation.

Ever since hearing this story in grade school myself it has always fascinated me and I’ve been filled with admiration for Gauss ever since. Now why did I tell you the story of the (mean, lazy, etc…) math teacher and Gauss?

One of my students’ favorite activities behind talking and messing around on computers is asking for bonus points. They ask for bonus points if I give them a test, they ask for them if I don’t give them a test, they ask for them if it’s too hot, or it rains, or if it’s a day that ends in ‘i' (so luckily I get a break on Dimanche). After initially curbing to such demands I’ve learned to turn a deaf ear to them. That is until recently.

In my youngest class there were 10 minutes left in the class and I didn’t really have anything prepared. Usually I’d teach them a few words in English or we’d sing a song. It was the last period of the day – a real scorcher of one too. I was ready to be done. Suddenly something clicked. I got up and walked to the front of the class.

“Do you want +3 bonus points?”

Suddenly everyone was paying attention. Three bonus points! That’s almost unheard of.

“I’m going to write a math question on the board and if just one person can solve it, I’ll give you all plus three bonus points.”

Most kids were very excited at this so some of the others were a little more concerned.

“What kind of math problem,” they asked.

After replying that it was simple addition, they were in agreement and I started writing. When I had written the question in its entirety and explained the three dots meant EVERYTHING in between their excitement died down a little bit, but most went immediately to work.

I went back to my desk to play the role of the (evil, lazy, etc…) math teacher hoping but not at all expecting a young Gauss to be seated in my class.

Soon the air was awash with answers. It’s 1,000,000. No it’s 345. No it’s 5,000,000. After a few minutes the whistle blew, indicating the class was over. I sighed inwardly, no Gausses in my class today. Suddenly a little voice floated across the air.

I’ve got it sir. It’s “cinq mille cinquante“ (5050)

My heart skipped a beat. Could it be?

Turns out that “cinq mille cinq cent” (5500) sounds an awful lot like “cinq mille cinquante“ (5050) in a room full of noisy children and my kid wasn’t the next Gauss. Still damn close though. In fact despite the fact that this was one of the youngest kids in the youngest class in the school none of the other kids in the other classes even got close. I was already thinking of doing an advanced math class next year and after this I’m really excited to do so.

In which I do battle…

Warning: The following post may contain strong nerd language which may be unintelligible to the average reader.

There is a lot of dust in Burkina Faso and it seems a lot of it tries very hard to make a home in my apartment. There is constantly a layer of dust on every surface in my house except maybe my bed. And even there after a couple days you can shake the mosquito net hanging over my bed and a shower of fine dust particles go showering down. I’m sure that’s healthy for my respiration system.

To counter this I do my best to dust and sweep my apartment whenever I can, which varies in frequency from a couple times a day to a couple times a week depending on the week. Luckily I don’t have too much floor space and do my best to make sure I keep things off of the floor. When it’s all said and done I have a nice collection of dust in my dustpan which I throw outside, just begging the wind to blow it back in my house over the course of the next couple days.

I was planning to dumb the dust in one of the small gardens at the base of my porch. As I emptied the pan over the small wall I jumped back as a fury of brown and red shot straight up in the air from below with a loud “BAACAAAACK!” A mother hen with feathers puffed out to the max, wings locked in attack position and a crazy look in her eyes came straight at me.

Luckily from my many days spent collecting Crushbone Orc Belts in gfay (Greater Faydark) and crush the shock of aggoing a mob quickly wore off and I assumed battle stance. I was a little bit worried because I was only wearing cloth, was OOM, and my Fine Plastic Dustpan and Brush weren’t exactly fear-inspiring but I didn’t have too much time to worry about it as she attacked.

I blocked the first attack, using the dustpan as a sort of shield and in combination with the brush tried to push her back gently. I felt that she was one of those stupid mobs that if you actually killed would cause you to lose a lot of hard earned faction, in this case probably with the Frères. As she attacked again my mind began to try and think of the nearest place to zone. I guess I usually did stop in place for a while when entering the compound, but that was too far away and I didn’t have SoW. I decided to try walking into my house and closing the screen door.

I quickly realized the folly of my action as she banged head first into the screen door, which I felt probably wasn’t able to hold up to much punishment. Opening the door again and staving off another attack I prayed that she was more like a WoW mob – limited aggro range – and ran toward the kitchen. Looking back I was relieved to see that she wasn’t following me.

I waited a while, watching from out of aggro range as she moved away from the house, taking with her 12 peeping little chicks. If a mother hen gets this defensive about her chicks I would hate to get between a mama bear and her cubs!

I copied my chat log here for your enjoyment.

Bovard has dropped 8 ounces of dust.
Mother Hen becomes enraged.
Mother Hen uses Battle Cry! Mother Hen’s Attack Power is increased!
Bovard blocks Mother Hen’s attack!
/w Bubs Dude I aggroed one of the stupid chickens, you want to send me a port?
Player ‘Bubs’ not found.
Bovard blocks Mother Hen’s attack!
/who friend
0 player(s) found.
Bovard blocks Mother Hen’s attack!
/y “Where is the nearest zone?”
No one hears you.
Bovard blocks Mother Hen’s attack!
/con
Looks like a reasonably safe opponent.
Bovard blocks Mother Hen’s attack!
Bovard tries to use Hide. It fails!
Mother Hen attacks a screen door for 2 dmg!
Bovard blocks Mother Hen’s attack!
Bovard uses sprint.
Battle Cry fades from Mother Hen.
Mother Hen is no longer enraged.