Gauss

Gauss was born into a poor family and was the only child.  He amazed his parents with the complexity of  math as early as 3 years of age, finding mistakes in the business finance formulas.

At the age of 7, Gauss started school and surprised his teachers by finding the sum of the sequence of 100 consecutive numbers instantly.  This means, he was able to add up all the digits between 1 and 100 and gave the answer to his teacher right after being given the challenge.

With this ability, his teacher introduced him to the Duke of Brunswick, who became Gauss’s beneficiary, paying for Carl to get a formal education.

Carl’s education included Brunswick Collegium Carolinum, Göttingen University, and University of Helmstedt.