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Shakuntala Devi

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Shakuntala Devi
File:Shakuntala devi.jpg
Shakuntala Devi, May 19, 2006
Born(1929-11-04)November 4, 1929
Bangalore, India
DiedApril 21, 2013(2013-04-21) (aged 83)
Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Cause of deathRespiratory and cardiac problems
NationalityIndian
Other namesHuman computer

Shakuntala Devi (November 4, 1929 – April 21, 2013), popularly known as the "Human Computer", was a child prodigy and mental calculator.[2][3][4][5][6] Her talents earned her a place in the 1982 edition of The Guinness Book of World Records.[2][3][4] Devi wrote a number of books, including novels and non-fiction texts about mathematics.

Biography

Shakuntala Devi was born in Bangalore, India,[3][4] to an orthodox religious family.>[7][8] Her father rebelled against becoming a temple priest[4] and instead joined a circus where he worked as a trapeze artist, lion tamer, tightrope walker and magician.[2][3][6][9] He discovered her ability to memorize numbers while teaching her a card trick when she was about three years old.[2][3][6] Her father left the circus and took her on road shows that displayed her ability at calculation.[3] She was able to do this without any formal education.[2][4] By age six she demonstrated her calculation and memorization abilities at the University of Mysore.[3][4]

In 1944, Devi moved to London with her father.[10] She returned to India in the mid-1960s and married Paritosh Banerji, an officer of the Indian Administrative Service from Kolkata.[10] They were divorced in 1979.[10] Devi returned to Bangalore in the early 1980s.[10]

Devi traveled the world demonstrating her arithmetic talents, including a tour of Europe in 1950 and a performance in New York City in 1976.[3] In 1988, she traveled to the U.S. to have her abilities studied by Arthur Jensen, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Jensen tested her performance of several tasks, including the calculation of large numbers. Examples of the problems presented to Devi were calculating the cube root of 61,629,875, and the seventh root of 170,859,375.[4][5] Jensen reported that Devi was able to provide the solution to the aforementioned problems (the answers being 395 and 15, respectively) before Jensen was able to copy them down in his notebook.[4][5] Jensen published his findings in the academic journal Intelligence in 1990.[4][5]

In addition to her work as a mental calculator, Devi was an astrologer and an author of several books, including cookbooks and novels.[3][6][9]

In April 2013, Devi was admitted to a hospital in Bangalore with respiratory problems.[2] Over the following two weeks she suffered from complications of the heart and kidneys.[2][3] She died in the hospital on April 21, 2013.[2][3] She was 83 years old.[3][4] She is survived by her daughter, Anupama Banerji.[4][9]

On November 4, 2013, Devi was honored with a Google Doodle for what would have been her 84th birthday.[11]

Achievements

  • In 1977 in the USA she competed with a computer to see who could calculate the cube root of 188,132,517 faster (she won). That same year, at the Southern Methodist University she was asked to give the 23rd root of a 201-digit number; she answered in 50 seconds.[2][5] Her answer—546,372,891—was confirmed by calculations done at the U.S. Bureau of Standards by the Univac 1101 computer, for which a special program had to be written to perform such a large calculation.[12]
  • On June 18, 1980, she demonstrated the multiplication of two 13-digit numbers — 7,686,369,774,870 × 2,465,099,745,779 — picked at random by the Computer Department of Imperial College, London. She correctly answered 18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730 in 28 seconds.[3][4] This event is mentioned in the 1982 Guinness Book of Records.[3][4]


Books

Some of her books include:

  • Astrology for You (New Delhi: Orient, 2005). ISBN 978-81-222-0067-6
  • Book of Numbers (New Delhi: Orient, 2006). ISBN 978-81-222-0006-5
  • Figuring: The Joy of Numbers (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), ISBN 978-0-06-011069-7, OCLC 4228589
  • In the Wonderland of Numbers (New Delhi: Orient, 2006). ISBN 978-81-222-0399-8
  • Mathability: Awaken the Math Genius in Your Child (New Delhi: Orient, 2005). ISBN 978-81-222-0316-5
  • More Puzzles to Puzzle You (New Delhi: Orient, 2006). ISBN 978-81-222-0048-5
  • Perfect Murder (New Delhi: Orient, 1976), OCLC 3432320
  • Puzzles to Puzzle You (New Delhi: Orient, 2005). ISBN 978-81-222-0014-0
  • Super Memory: It Can Be Yours (New Delhi: Orient, 2011). ISBN 978-81-222-0507-7; (Sydney: New Holland, 2012). ISBN 978-1-74257-240-6, OCLC 781171515
  • The World of Homosexuals (Vikas Publishing House, 1977), ISBN 978-0706904789[13][14]

References

  1. ^ http://indiankanoon.org/doc/153999/
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Shakuntala Devi strove to simplify maths for students". The Hindu. April 21, 2013. Retrieved July 9, 2013.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Pandya, Haresh (April 21, 2013). "Shakuntala Devi, 'Human Computer' Who Bested the Machines, Dies at 83". The New York Times. Retrieved July 9, 2013.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m "Obituary: Shakuntala Devi". The Telegraph. April 22, 2013. Retrieved July 9, 2013.
  5. ^ a b c d e Jensen, Arthur R. (July–September 1990). "Speed of information processing in a calculating prodigy". Intelligence. 14 (3). University of California, Berkeley, USA: 259–274. doi:10.1016/0160-2896(90)90019-P. Retrieved July 9, 2013. Cite error: The named reference "JENSEN" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  6. ^ a b c d "Obituary: India's 'human computer' Shakuntala Devi". BBC News. April 22, 2013. Retrieved July 9, 2013.
  7. ^ "Science: Numbers Game". Time. July 14, 1952. Retrieved July 9, 2013.
  8. ^ IBTimes Staff Reporter (April 22, 2013). "Math Genius and Guinness Record Holder Shakuntala Devi Passes Away at Age 83". International Business Times. Retrieved July 23, 2013.
  9. ^ a b c Aditi Mishra; Siddarth Kumar Jain (April 22, 2013). "She made learning maths as thrilling as magic". The Bangalore Mirror. Retrieved July 9, 2013.
  10. ^ a b c d "India's math wizard, Shakuntala Devi". Yahoo! India News. April 22, 2013. Retrieved July 9, 2013.
  11. ^ TNN (November 4, 2013) "Shakuntala Devi's 84th birthday celebrated with a doodle". The Times of India. Retrieved on November 4, 2013.
  12. ^ Smith, Steven Bradley (1983). The Great Mental Calculators: The Psychology, Methods, and Lives of Calculating Prodigies, Past and Present. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0231056400.
  13. ^ Shakuntala Devi (1977). The World of Homosexuals. Vikas Publishing House. ISBN 9780706904789Template:Inconsistent citations{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  14. ^ Jeffrey S. Siker (2006). Homosexuality and Religion. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 127. ISBN 9780313330889Template:Inconsistent citations{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link): "In her 1977 book, mathematician Shakuntala Devi interviewed..."

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