Possibly you have mixed up two different stories. A John von Neumann story I remember that has a similar punch line, is as follows:
Two trains are on the same track hurdling toward each other. They are 30 km apart, and each train is travelling at 60 km/hour. A fly flies at 100 km/hour from one train to the other, and when it reaches the other train turns around and flies to the other train, and so on, until the trains crash and crush the fly. Question: What is the total distance that the fly flew? The easy solution is to realize that the trains crash in 0.25 hours, hence the fly will have flown for 0.25 hours, at 100 km/hour, so will have flown 25 km. Someone once posed the question to John von Neumann. He thought for a moment and said, "25 km". "Good. Now Johnny, how did you come up with the answer?" he was asked. "I summed the series." On Sun, Dec 18, 2011 at 7:21 AM, Randy MacDonald <[email protected]> wrote: > On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 11:05 AM, Roger Hui > <[email protected]>wrote: > > NB. I wanted to tell them the story of Gauss as a schoolboy > > NB. summing the numbers from 1 to 100 in no time flat. > > Was it John Von Neumann who asked "Why didn't Gauss just add the numbers > up?" > > > > -- > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > |\/| Randy A MacDonald | If the string is too tight, it will snap > |\\| [email protected]| If it is too loose, it won't play... > BSc(Math) UNBF '83 | APL: If you can say it, it's done. > Natural Born APL'er | I use Real J > Experimental webserver http://142.167.66.223/ (Dynamic IP) > ------------------------------------------------<-NTP>----{ gnat }- > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
