The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1869-09-16
WONDERFUL CALCULAT0RS.
Intuitive Perceptions in Mathematics

lon the Sd OF July, 1889. some Of the emf
nent members of the Academy OF Science, at
Paris, including NM. Arago, Lacrolx. Libra
and Strum, met to examine remarkable by,
whose powers Of mental calculation we're
deemed quite ine1plicable. The boy, named
Vito Msngiamele, q sllician, was the son OF
shepherd, and was about eleven years old.
The examiners asked him several questions
vhicy they knew, under ordinary circum-
stances, to be tedious Of solution such as the
cube root OF 8,796, 416, and the tenth root OF
2S2 ATS 249. The first OF these he answered IN
half minute, the second IN three minutes.
One question was of the following comph-
Gated character: What number complies with
tie following proportione, that II it's cube be
added to-, FIVE times it's square. and then 2
times the number. and the number 42 be sub
st racted from the result. the number is equal
to or zero?
M. Arago repeated this question second
time; but while he was finishing the last word,
the boy replied, "the number is five."
Such cases greatly puzzle ordinary mathe-
mat,cians. Buxton, Colburn and Bidder have,
at different times, exhibited this unaccounta-
BILE power OF accounting. Jedediah Buxton,
although his grandfather was q clergyman and
his father q schoolmaster, was 30 neglected In
his education that he could not even write;
his mental faculties were slow, with the one
wonderful exception Of his powero mental
arithm .tic. a -.
After hearing sermon, he remembered and
cared for nothing concerning it, except the
number OF words, which he had counted du-
ripg their delivery. If period of time or size
of an object were mentioned in his hearing, he
almost uuconsciously began to count how many
seconds, or how many hair breadths there
we're in il. He walked from Chesterfield 10
London on purpose to have the qualification
Of seeing George Ii; and wilhelm the metrop-
oils he was taken much notice OF by members
Of the Royal Society. On one occasion he went
to see Garrick in Richard LII; but instead OF
attending to the performance IN the usual way,
he found occupation in counting the humber
OF words uttered by each pc forme's
|, After striding over field IN two or three d.
rectiops he would tell the number OF square
inches it Contained. He could number all the
plnts OF beer he had drank at all the houses
he had ever visited durina half century. He
once set himself to reckon how much farthing
would amount to If doubled one hundred and
forty times; the Jesuit came out in such
stupendous number Of pounds sterling as
required thrty-nine places Of figures to repre-.
sent 1T.
In 1850, this problem was put to him : to find
out how many cubical cighths OF an inch there
are in quadrapgular mass which measured
231, las 7s9 yards long, 5 642,73 yards wide,
all the rest, mentally. On one occasion he
made himself what he called drunk with
reckoning" the following I'm 200, 600 million
cubic miles how mkny grains of eight different
kinds of corn and pulse. and how many hairs
an inch .long?' He ascertained by actual
counting how many Of each kind Of grain, and
how many hairs an inch long, would 60 to an
inch cube, and then set himself about his
enormous se!f-imposed task. He could sus-
pend any of his problems for any length OF
time, and resume at the point where he left OF;
and could converse on other subjects while
thus employed. He could never give any &C
count of the way 10 which be worked out bis
problems; nor did his singular but exceptional
faculty bring him any other adyant age than
that Of being invited to the bouses OF the gen.
try as a kind OF show.
Zefih Colburn, who excited m Fehs INTEREST
in London IN 1912, was native OF Vermont.
At six years old he sud lenly showed extraor-
dinary powers of mental calculation. By pro.
cesses which seemed 20 be almost unconscious
to himself, and wera wholly so to others, he
answered arithmetical questions OF consider
able difficulty.
When eight years old he was taken to
London, where he astonished many learned
auditors and spectators by giving correct
solutions to such problems as The following ::
Rise upto the. sixteenth power; give the
square root Of 106. .929: give the cube root
OF 268S26 125; how many seconds are there
IN 4s years The answers were always