Shakuntala Devi

Shakuntala Devi ( * November 4, 1929 in Bangalore, † April 21, 2013 ) was a child prodigy and an Indian artist computing. Their extraordinary skills in mental arithmetic earned her the nickname "the human computer " field.

Life

Shakuntala Devi was born in the southern Indian city of Bangalore in a kannada - speaking Brahmin family. Her father refused to be a Brahmin temple priest, and instead was director of a traveling circus, where he performed as a trapeze artist, lion tamer, acrobats and magicians. Shakuntala memory for numbers fell to her father when he taught his three year old daughter about a card trick. Then he left the circus and presented the number talent of his daughter in street demonstrations. As a six- year-old she demonstrated her skills at the University of Mysore.

1944 moved Shakuntala Devi with her father to London and returned after about 20 years, in the mid-1960s, returned to India. Devi married an Indian civil servant; They were divorced in 1979. Devi traveled throughout the world and publicly demonstrated their exceptional mathematical abilities. In 1950 she made ​​a tour of Europe, and in 1976 she performed in New York. In 1988 she underwent in the U.S. a study by Arthur Jensen, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley. Jensen asked her several tasks, which included calculations with extremely large numbers. They calculated, for example, the cube root of 61,629,875 and the seventh root of 170 859 375. Jensen reported that Devi was able to call the solutions of these tasks ( 395 and 15), before he had written in his notebook. Jensen published his results in 1990 in the scientific journal Intelligence.

Devi held according to the Guinness Book of Records world record in fast arithmetic. Among other things, they calculated the head of the week of any date from the 20th century. In 1977, she calculated the 23 root of a number with 201 points in less than 50 seconds, up 12 seconds faster than the computer. In 1980, she multiplied two 13 - digit numbers that had previously been selected at random by a computer in 28 seconds.

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

Devi died in April 2013 in her hometown Bangalore. She left behind a daughter and two grandchildren. On the first birthday after her death her ​​a devoted Google Doodle.

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
Mental calculation Lion taming Berkeley, California Wurzel (disambiguation) WorldCat The Times of India
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