Meet Human Computer Shakuntala Devi in Dubai

Media Release

Dubai, Apr 28: Karnataka Sangha, Dubai is pleased to announce to all the kannadigas of UAE and the school going children, a rare opportunity to participate in an extraordinary session with the Hunan Computer Smt. Shakuntala Devi on Tuesday 29th April 2008 at Indian Consulate Auditorium at 7.30 PM

You could have the unique opportunity to have your children participate in this show.

Venue: Indian Consulate Auditorium, Dubai
Date: Tuesday 29th April 2008
Time: 7.30 PM

Contact: 050 6599375 (Tantry)

Note: Due to seats being limited entrance will be first come first serve basis.
 

The Human Computer Smt. SHAKUNTALA DEVI

Shakuntala Devi is a well known mathematical GENIUS and calculating prodigy from India. She has-been nicknamed “Human Computer” because of her extraordinary talent and skill in solving complex mathematical problems without any mechanical aid. Shakuntala Devi was born on 4th November, 1939 in Bangalore, Karnataka, India. Shakuntala’s Father was a circus artiste and it was he who introduced Shakuntala to the world of mathematics, through card tricks. Shakuntala’s amazing memory power was tapped, which then led her to develop an extraordinary love for number at the tender age of three.

Gradually, over the years, Shakuntala’s memorizing and calculating skills were strengthened, whilst she simultaneously became an expert in complex mental arithmetic. Beginning at the University of Mysore and the Annamalai University, Shakuntala’s public displays of her extraordinary abilities and talent even spread to the institution worldwide, bewildering the crowded gathering of students and the professors alike. In her time, older calculating prodigies like Mr. Truman Henry Safford were also present, yet Shakuntala started displaying her talents from very young age.

With her brilliant mind, Shakuntala Devi was adept at solving arithmetical problems, including functions of addition, multiplication, division, calculating square and cube roots, along with complex algorithms and Verdic Maths. She could even state the day of the week of any given date in the last century in a jiffy. Shakuntala could even outdo some of the fastest available computers of that period amongst her numerous feats, the most outstanding one that fetched her name in the 1995 Guinness Book of the World Records are::

• In January 1977, at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, Shakuntala Devi Extracted the 23rd root of a 201-digit number, at the fifty-second mark, with the correct answer being ‘546372891’. She had beaten the fastest computer, UNIVAC’s time of 62 seconds, and 13,000 instructions.

• On the 18th June, 1980, Shakuntala Devi demonstrated the multiplication of two 13-digit number:’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 could find the cube root of 332 812 557 in under a minute