The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1882-06-04
LIGHTNING CALCULATIONS

l"Llghtning Calculator whose ulnO
has finally given way under the
strain to which it had been put, may
make of interest a few notes on
| these phenomenal calculatOrs. and
NOTABLY the young Zerah Colburn,
who was born in Cabot, VT, in 1904
and died in 1910, was among the
most remarkable Of the Calculating
Boys. At the age Of six he had given
lsuch evidence of his extraordinary
powers Of computation that his
father resolved to show him IN pub
lie. Among the questions which he
solved at this period were such as
How many days and hours in 1911
years ?" ANSWER, in twenty Sec
Onds, 661,025 days; 15,864,360 hours,
or How many seconds In eleven
years ?" answer, in four sec
onds, 346,S96,0O0. Two years
later, when they We're show
ing him in Europe. he performed in
few seconds such calculations as
squaring 99S,999 and multiplying
the product twice by 10 and once by
%, or finding the factors of to the
tbirty-second power plus 1-4,2O4,
| 967,297. COlburn Immediately gave
64Ix6, 700, All, and when asked the
factors Of 247,4S3, replied instan-
! taneouslY, "941 and 263, and they are
the only factors" Such problems as
raising s to the sixteenth power,
giving the square root of 106,929, or
| the cube root of 26S,336,175 were
solved in Il moment. AT this
period COlburn was ignorant of the
ordinary rules of arithmetic and
could not tell how or why particu-
lar processes came into his mind,
though later he could analyze and
describe his methods. Once, when
hidden to multiply 21,794 by SAB, his
manner provoked a question, and it
was found that, for some reason
which he could not explain, he
was obtaining the result by null
'tiplying 65,2O2 by 181. The late Mr..
George Parker Bidder cultivated his
remarkable faculty to highly use
full purpose. When in his sixth
year he used to amuse himself by
counting up to 100, then to 1000,
then to 100000; by degrees he ac-
customed himself to contemplate
the relations of high numbers, and
N childhood he invented processes
Of his own by which mentally he
could perform calculations more
rapidly and accurately than others
could with pencil and paper by the
ordinary rules. At the age of ten
we read that he answered in two
minutes the question: "What is the
interest of 94,444 for 4,444 days at
A per cent. per annum?" Answer,
g, 434 15s. 515d. A few months
later. when he was not yet eleven
years Old, he was asked: Glow long
would a cistern l mile cube be fill
ing if receiving from a river 12O
gallons per minute without inter
missiOn?" In two minutes he
gave the correct answer IA
800 years, 2S5 days, 12hrS and ADMIN.
a year later he divided correctly, in
less than minute, 4sS,592, 413,56S
by 9,076. At II years Of age he
answered in less than a minute the
question: If a distance of 90 inches
is passed over in a second Of time,
how many inches will be passed
over in 365d., 5h., 4Sm., Sos? Much
more surprising, however, was his
success when - years old, in dealing
with the question: What is the cube
root Of 897.339, 273, 974,002, 155? He
obtained the answer in 215 minutes,
viz: 964,537. Jedediah Buxton was
another prOdigious calculator, more
remarkable in some respects than
either COlburn or Bidder. He never
learned to write, and in other
branches Of education was as back
ward as a boy Of 10, while his men
tai faculties were slow, saving al
ways his faculty of calculation. So
completely was he absorbed in his
theme that he took little cognizance
of external objects save as they sug-
gested themselves. Thus if period
of time or the age OF man were
spoken of, Buxton at once
announced that that made
so many seconds" and a distance
was to him so many hair-Dreadths.
By walking over the fields of Sir
John Rhodes lordship of Clinton
his step was as infallible as a sur
veyor's chain-Buxton gave the
proprietor their contents of some
thousands of acres, first in acres,
then in rOods, perches, square feet,
square inches, and finally in square
hair-breadths-forty-eight to each
side of an inch. He had the faculty
of being able to rest a calculation at
any stage and take it up heXt morn
ing, a week later, or after a lapse of
months. He could number all the
pints of beer he had ever drunk at
all the houses he had ever visited in
half q century. Among the prob
lens given him to solve were such
as this: "How many cubical eighths
of an inch are there in quadran-
gUlar mass 23,145,7S9 yards long,
5,642,732 yards wide and 1895
yards thick" an appalling cal
culation which he performed
mentally. Once he set himself to
doubling a farthing 140 times, and
on another occasion he made him.
self, in his own phrase, drunk
with reckoning" by calculating
how many hairs an inch long and
how many grains OF eight different
sorts of cereals there were in a mass
Of 200,0O0,OOO,000 cubic miles, hav-
ing previously counted the hairs
and grains in single inch to get his
point Of departure. What was most