Shakuntala Devi

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Shakuntala Devi

Born November 4, 1929

Bangalore, British India

Died April 21, 2013 (aged 83)

Bangalore, Karnataka, India

Cause of death Respiratory and cardiac problems

Nationality Indian

Other names Human computer

Shakuntala Devi (November 4, 1929 – April 21, 2013), popularly known as "Human
Computer", was an Indian prodigy mental calculator.

Contents
[hide]

1 Biograph
y
2 Achievem
ents
3 Death
4 Books
5 Reference
s
 6 External
links
7 Interview

Biography[edit]

Shakuntala Devi was born in Bangalore, India, to an orthodox priestly family. Her father rebelled
against becoming a temple priest and instead joined a circus, where he worked as
a trapeze and tightrope performer, and later as a lion tamer and a human cannonball.[citation
needed]
Shakuntala Devi was only around three years old and she was roped in to help her father
with card tricks. Her father left the circus and took her on road shows that displayed her amazing
ability at number crunching. It is worth noting that she was able to do this, despite having had no
formal education.[1] By age six she demonstrated her calculation and memorization abilities at
the University of Mysore.[2] At the age of eight she had success at Annamalai University by
doing the same. In 2006 she released In the Wonderland of Numbers which talks about a girl
Neha and her fascination for numbers. She developed the concept of 'mind dynamics'.

Shakuntala Devi returned to India in the mid-1960s and married Paritosh Banerji, a senior IAS
officer from Kolkata. The couple had a daughter, Anupama Banerji. Shakuntala Devi returned to
Bangalore in early 1980s.

Achievements[edit]

• In 1977 in USA she competed with a computer to see who gives the cube root of
188138517 faster, she won. At the Southern Methodist University she was asked to give the
23rd root of a 201-digit number; she answered in 50 seconds.[3] 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.[4]
• 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 correctly answered 18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730
in 28 seconds. This event is mentioned in the 1982 Guinness Book of Records.[5]
Death[edit]

On April 21, 2013 at around 8:15 am, Shakuntala Devi died at a hospital in Bangalore, India. She
had been admitted to the Bangalore hospital on April 3 as her kidneys had become weak and she
also had respiratory problems.[6] She was 83 years old and is survived by a daughter, Anupama
Banerji.[7]

Books[edit]

Some of her books include:

• Puzzles to Puzzle You (New Delhi: Orient, 2005). ISBN 978-81-222-0014-0

• More Puzzles to Puzzle You (New Delhi: Orient, 2006). ISBN 978-81-222-0048-5
• Book of Numbers (New Delhi: Orient, 2006). ISBN 978-81-222-0006-5
• Perfect Murder (New Delhi: Orient, 1976), OCLC 3432320
• The World of Homosexuals (Vikas Publishing House, 1977), ISBN 978-0706904789
• 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
• 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
• Mathability: Awaken the Math Genius in Your Child[8] (New Delhi: Orient, 2005). ISBN
978-81-222-0316-5
• Astrology for You[9] (New Delhi: Orient, 2005). ISBN 978-81-222-0067-6
References[edit]

1. ^ http://www.theage.com.au/national/obituaries/maths-ability-earned-human-
computer-tag-20130430-2irec.html
2. ^ "Shakuntala Devi". knowyourstar.com. Retrieved 01 Jan 2013.
3. ^ Arthur R. Jensen, "Speed of Information Processing in a Calculating Prodigy",
University of California, Berkeley. INTELLIGENCE 14, 259-274 (1990)
4. ^ Smith, S.B. The great mental calculators,Columbia Un. Press (1983)
5. ^ Shakuntala Devi, ‘Human Computer’ Who Bested the Machines, Dies at 83,
NY Times, April 23, 2013
6. ^ "Shakuntala Devi strove to simplify maths for students". The Hindu. April 21,
2013.
7. ^ "Mathematician, 'human computer' Shakuntala Devi dies". Times of India.
8. ^ "The Sunday Tribune - Spectrum - Literature". Tribuneindia.com. April 20,
2003. Retrieved July 11, 2012.
 9. ^ Devi, Shakuntala (March 1, 2005). Astrology for You. ISBN 978-81-222-0067-
6.

External links