Shakuntala Devi

Shakuntala Devi (born November 4, 1929 in Bangalore ; † April 21, 2013 there ) was a child prodigy and an Indian arithmetic artist. Her exceptional mental arithmetic skills earned her the nickname “the human computer”.

Life

Shakuntala Devi was born in the south Indian city of Bangalore into a kannada- speaking Brahmin family. Her father refused to become a Brahmin temple priest and instead became director of a traveling circus in which he performed as a trapeze artist , lion tamer , tightrope walker and magician . Shakuntala's number memory caught her father's eye when he was teaching his three-year-old daughter a card trick. He then left the circus and presented his daughter's talent for numbers in street performances. As a six year old, she demonstrated her skills at the University of Mysore .

In 1944 Shakuntala Devi moved to London with her father and after about 20 years returned to India in the mid-1960s. Devi married an Indian civil servant; the marriage was divorced in 1979. Devi traveled the world and publicly demonstrated her exceptional math skills. In 1950 she toured Europe and in 1976 she performed in New York . In 1988 she underwent a study in the USA by Arthur Jensen , professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley . Jensen set her several tasks, including calculating with extremely large numbers. For example, she calculated the cube root of 61,629,875 and the seventh root of 170,859,375. Jensen reported that Devi was able to name the solutions to the named problems (395 and 15 respectively) before writing them down in his notebook. Jensen published his results in 1990 in the science journal Intelligence .

According to the Guinness Book of Records, Devi held the world record in fast computing . Among other things, she calculated the day of the week for any date from the 20th century in her head . In 1977 she calculated the 23rd root of a number with 201 digits in less than 50 seconds, 12 seconds faster than the computer. In 1980, she multiplied two 13-digit numbers, previously selected at random by a computer, in 28 seconds.

She has worked as an astrologer and has authored several books, including Fun with Numbers , Puzzles to Puzzle You and Awaken the Genius in Your Child, as well as a study on homosexuality in India .

Devi died in April 2013 in her hometown of Bangalore. She left a daughter and two grandchildren. On the first birthday after her death, Google dedicated a doodle to her .

Works (selection)

• Puzzles to Puzzle You. Orient, New Delhi 2005, ISBN 978-81-222-0014-0
• More Puzzles to Puzzle You. Orient, New Delhi 2006, ISBN 978-81-222-0048-5
• Book of Numbers. Orient, New Delhi 2006, ISBN 978-81-222-0006-5
• Perfect Murder. Orient, New Delhi 1976
• The World of Homosexuals. Vikas Publishing House, 1977, ISBN 978-0-7069-0478-9
• Figuring: The Joy of Numbers. Harper & Row, New York 1977, ISBN 0-06-011069-4
• In the Wonderland of Numbers. Orient, New Delhi 2006, ISBN 978-81-222-0399-8
• Super Memory: It Can Be Yours. Orient, New Delhi 2011, ISBN 978-81-222-0507-7 ; New Holland, Sydney 2012, ISBN 978-1-74257-240-6
• Mathability: Awaken the Math Genius in Your Child. Orient, New Delhi 2005, ISBN 978-81-222-0316-5
• Astrology for You. Orient, New Delhi 2005, ISBN 978-81-222-0067-6

Web links

• Literature by and about Shakuntala Devi in the WorldCat bibliographic database .
• Shakuntala Devi in the Internet Movie Database .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Shakuntala Devi (obituary) at telegraph.co.uk, accessed November 4, 2013
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Shakuntala Devi strove to simplify maths for students at thehindu.com, accessed on November 4, 2013
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Obituary: The Human Computer: Shakuntala Devi (1929-2013) at siliconeer.com, accessed November 4, 2013
4. ↑ Arthur R. Jensen: Speed ​​of information processing in a calculating prodigy . In: Intelligence . 14, No. 3, University of California, Berkeley, USA, July-September 1990, pp. 259-274. Retrieved July 2, 2013.
5. ↑ Shakuntala Devi: The World of Homosexuals . Vikas Publishing House, Delhi 1977, ISBN 978-0-7069-0478-9
6. ↑ TNN (November 4, 2013) "Shakuntala Devi's 84th birthday celebrated with a doodle" . The Times of India . Retrieved November 4, 2013.