Shakuntala Devi, who died in India a week or so ago, was an incredible arithmetician. She once "accurately multiplied two random 13-digit numbers in a few seconds." "On a visit to this country, an American psychologist set her two problems: the cube root of 61,629,875, and
the seventh root of 170,859,375. Shakuntala Devi gave the correct
answers – 395 and 15 – even before he started his stopwatch."
No one knows how she did this. No one has even advanced a persuasive theory.
It's difficult for me to remember a thirteen-digit number. I don't think I could remember two thirteen-digit numbers. It's beyond my imagination to think about multiplying them (to produce the correct twenty-six digit answer).
I'm wondering whether Devi's abilities seem so astonishing because she's out there all by herself. If there were a cohort of people who could easily multiply 8, 9, or 12 digit numbers it wouldn't seem so wonderful that she could do 13. But she's unique.
And intimidating.
But then I'm intimidated by Mozart, whose feats are also beyond imagining.
I wonder whether Ms. Devi carried some sort of genetic mutation. Is remarkable proficiency at mental arithmetic an inheritable trait? Which makes me wonder, when did homines sapientes acquire the ability to learn the times table? When did the mutation for that trait first appear?
I telephoned my consultant on such matters, the blogger Political Mammal. He says that the ordinary brain, yours and mine, does so many calculations just when we walk down the street and compare this storefront to the one that went out of business and to the similar one on the next block that, well, we should be just as astonished at quotidian events as at mental arithmetic. I see his point. Who knows how many synapses are firing now, even as I'm writing this simplicity-itself post.
But writing a few words is a commonplace miracle; extracting seventh roots — now, that's something else.
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