Shakuntala Devi, sometimes known as the “Human Computer,” was an Indian writer and mental calculator who lived from November 4 1929, to April 21 2013. Shakuntala Devi, born on November 4, 1939, could not pursue a formal education due to financial limitations. She was enrolled in Class I at St Theresa’s Convent in Chamarajpet, Bengaluru, but had to leave because her parents could not afford the Rs. 2 monthly tuitions. Shakuntala performed arithmetic at the University of Mysore when she was only six years old.
Shakuntala Devi provided the 23rd root of a 201-digit number in 50 seconds in 1977 at Southern Methodist University. Her response, 546,372,891, was supported by calculations made by the UNIVAC 1101 computer at the US Bureau of Standards, for which a particular programme had to be built to handle such an extensive calculation.
Shakuntala Devi’s accomplishments
She completed the 23rd cube root of a 201-digit number at Southern Methodist College in Dallas in 50 seconds, yielding the result 546,372,891, as opposed to the UNIVAC 1101 computer, which needed an additional 12 seconds to complete the identical task.
She multiplied 7686369774870 and 2465099745779 at Imperial College London in 1980, computing the 26-digit result in 28 seconds. She currently holds the Guinness Book of World Records for this quickest human computation. On June 18, 1980, she showed how to multiply two 13-digit numbers: 2,465,099,745,779 and 7,686,369,774,870. The Department of Computing at Imperial College London chose these numbers at random. In the 28 seconds it took her to utter the response, she had accurately answered the question, 18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730. The Guinness Book of Records, published in 1982, included this incident.
She visited the United States in 1988 so Arthur Jensen, a professor of educational psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, could examine her abilities. Jensen put her to the test in various activities, including calculating huge sums. In 1990, Jensen published the results of his research in the scholarly journal Intelligence.
How did Shakuntala Devi Learn Mathematical Skills?
Shakuntal Devi was brilliant from birth. She completely learned on her own. She was the daughter of a circus performer and began travelling with her parents at the age of three. It’s been heard that she learned how to calculate with the help of card tricks. She began visiting numerous schools and institutions to demonstrate her mathematical prowess as soon as she learned how to compute cube roots mentally. When she was still a teenager, she started her global travels.
She published The World of Homosexuals in 1977, the country’s first study on the subject, for which she came under fire. She claimed in the documentary For Straights Only that she was interested in the subject since she was married to a homosexual man and wanted to learn more about homosexuality. Devi was a well-known astrologer and the author of numerous works, including novels and cuisines, in addition to her work as a mental calculator.
