Shakuntala Devi
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Shakuntala Devi is a calculating prodigy who was born on November 4, 1939 in Bangalore, India. Her father worked in a circus as a trapeze and tightrope performer, and later as a human cannonball. Her calculating gifts first demonstrated themselves while she was doing card tricks with her father when she was three. They report she "beat" them by memorization of cards rather than by sleight of hand. By age six she demonstrated her calculation and memorization abilities at the University of Mysore. At the age of eight she had success at Annamalai University by doing the same.
Unlike many other calculating prodigies, for example Truman Henry Safford, her abilities did not wane in adulthood. In 1977 she extracted the 23rd root of a 201-digit number mentally. On June 18, 1980 she demonstrated the multiplication of two 13-digit numbers 7,686,369,774,870 x 2,465,099,745,779 picked at random by the Computer Department of Imperial College, London. She answered the question in 28 seconds. Her correct answer was 18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730. This event is mentioned on page 26 of the 1995 Guinness Book of Records ISBN 0-553-56942-2.
Shakuntala Devi has written a number of books, many of them dealing with popular mathematics. She has also written a cookbook for men. She is a devout Hindu who feels a strong connection to Ganesha, whom she connects to her gifts. She is also interested in astrology and in recent years she has offered personal astrology consultations in India and the United States.
In 2006 she has released a new book called In the Wonderland of Numbers with Orient Paperbacks which talks about a girl Neha and her fascination for numbers. The book is in the form of story and will excite the readers about numbers and number theory.
