A Quick Math Trick

School is about to start, so —

Here is a math trick I just learned about.  If you added up all the numbers from zero to 100, what would be their sum?

Sounds daunting, doesn’t it?  Well, there’s an easy way to do this.

Imagine a column of numbers from 0 to 100.  How many numbers would you have?  Counting 0, there would be 101 numbers.  Then pair them from the top of the list and the bottom — 0 and 100, 1 and 99, 2 and 98, 3 and 97, and so forth.  Notice their sum is always 100. So you’re going to end up with 50 pairs of numbers, each with the sum of 100.  50 x 100 = 5000. And the 101st number will be the number in the middle — 50.  So the final answer is 5000 + 50 or 5050.

Impress a teacher with that this month!

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