Thank You Google for teaching me about Shakuntala Devi! Allen D
| Shakuntala Devi | |
|---|---|
| Born | November 4, 1929 Bangalore, India |
| Died | April 21, 2013 (aged 83) Bangalore, Karnataka, India |
| Cause of death | Respiratory and cardiac problems |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Other names | Human computer |
Shakuntala Devi (November 4, 1929 – April 21, 2013) was an Indian writer and mental calculator, popularly known as the “human computer”.[1][2][3][4][5] A child prodigy, her talents eventually earned her a place in the 1982 edition of The Guinness Book of World Records.[1][2][3] As a writer, Devi wrote a number of books, including novels and non-fiction texts about mathematics, puzzles, and astrology.
Devi traveled the world demonstrating her arithmetic talents, including a tour of Europe in 1950 and a performance in New York City in 1976.[2] In 1988, she traveled to the U.S. to have her abilities studied by Arthur Jensen, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Jensen tested her performance of several tasks, including the calculation of large numbers. Examples of the problems presented to Devi included calculating the cube root of 61,629,875, and the seventh root of 170,859,375.[3][4] Jensen reported that Devi was able to provide the solution to the aforementioned problems (395 and 15, respectively) before Jensen was able to copy them down in his notebook.[3][4] Jensen published his findings in the academic journal Intelligence in 1990.[3][4]
Achievements
- In 1977, at Southern Methodist University, she was asked to give the 23rd root of a 201-digit number; she answered in 50 seconds.[1][4] Her answer—546,372,891—was confirmed by calculations done at the U.S. Bureau of Standards by theUNIVAC 1101 computer, for which a special program had to be written to perform such a large calculation.[11]
- On June 18, 1980, she demonstrated the multiplication of two 13-digit numbers — 7,686,369,774,870 × 2,465,099,745,779 — picked at random by the Computer Department of Imperial College, London. She correctly answered 18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730 in 28 seconds.[2][3] This event is mentioned in the 1982 Guinness Book of Records.[2][3]
more copy coming later today…
a iwoodstock blog with no name (yet) 