On March the 30th, 1796, in Gottingen University, Germany, after dinner, a 18-year-old young student got down to his math-homework as usual, which was signed by his teacher. This boy is a very talented student, so his teacher placed much expectation on him. Everyday, after finishing the regular work, he was also arranged to finish three more difficult problems which he usually solved in three hours.

This day, as usual, he finished the regular assignments in less than one hour and got down to the additional problems. But the last one which was written on a small piece of paper seemed to be very strange, it said to draw a regular heptadecagon only by a compass and a ruler without scales. He did not care it, and just got down to do it. Several hours past, but he hadn't made it out. He thought: Maybe my teacher thought the problems were too easy for me every time before, and enhanced the difficulty deliberately. The more difficult the problem was the more he wanted to make it out. He took out the ruler and compass, painting and thinking about variety of possible ideas until the next dawn, and the strange problem was finally solved.

The next day, he came to his teacher’s office with his homework. And said guiltily: "The last problem you signed to me is so difficult that I spent a whole night to solve it. I am sorry that you may be disappointed with me." His teacher took a look at his homework, with a stunning expression on his face, asked: "This is what you have done last night?" "Yes, but it took me so long time."

Then the teacher let him sit down, taking out a ruler and compass, asked him draw it again to his face. He did according to the teacher and finished it very quickly. At this time, the teacher said very excitedly: "Do you know that you have solved a mathematic problem which puzzled the whole world for more than two thousand years. Archimedes and Newton didn't solve it with their best effort, but you make it out during a single night! How incredible! What a genius! I just accidently left the piece of paper in your homework but didn’t mean to sign it to you!

Many years later, the student recalled the case, he said: "If someone told me that problem is such a difficulty, I won’t solve it in one night." This student is just the famous mathematician ---- Gauss.

This short story tells us that when facing difficulties, ignorance may be a good thing，it makes us fearless and encourage us to conquer the difficulties.