Human Computer Meets Journalists at Imperial Tailoring
Text Elina Krivovyaz
This meeting, called "Seminar on Mathematics Through Mind Dynamics" was hold on the 10th of June in the context of The Year of India in Russia at Imperial Tailoring shop. The presenter Shakuntala Devi is aworld renowned Indian mathematician.
She has been nicknamed the 'Human Computer' because of her extraordinary talents and skills in solving complex mathematical problems without any mechanical aid. For example, on June 18, 1980, Shakuntala Devi demonstrated the multiplication of two 13-digit numbers: 7,686,369,774,870 x 2,465,099,745,779 picked randomly by the Computer Department of Imperial College, London. She produced the correct answer of 18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730 in just 28 seconds. Shakuntala can find the cube root of 332 812 557 in under a minute. For number-crunching feats such as this, she earned herself entries into the Guinness Book of World Records in 1980 and 1995. Shakuntala has demonstrated her unique talents to the students of many Universities and has met, apparently, well-known figures like Hillary Clinton, Nelson Mandela, Indira Gandhi and others.
On June 10, the audience was allowed to give her quizzes and puzzles of their own to solve. She solved them all. For example, she asked me to gave her my date of birth, and when I told 29th, July of 1982, she replied promptly that it was Thursday. I checked this in my mobile phone (it took me a minute) and realized she was right. After the quizzes, the guests enjoyed scrumptious Indian food and drinks.
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