Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1882-06-24
Hlisfellaneous.
some OF THE WoSDERFUL MENTAL
ARITHNETIcIAxs Who DELIGHTED TO
MAKE THEMSELVES DRUNK WITH FG-

MAKE THEMSELVES Drunk WITH FG-
Tres 49, 49,
The murder Of his wife recently by
Prof. j. ID. Andrews, the Lightning Cal
eulator." whose mind had finally given
way under the strain to which it had been
put. may make of interest 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 such evidence Of his extraOrdi-
narv powers Of computation. that his
father resolved To show him in public.
Among the questions which he solved
at this period were such as .-IfOw many
DAYS and hours 10 | .SIl years." answer
in 20 seconds, l,0l5 days; 1854 800
hours,) or. How many seconds in ii
years ?- (Answer in four seconds, 346.
500, O1O.) Two years later. when they
were showing him in Europe, he per-
formed in a few seconds such calculations
AS squaring 999.9 99 and multiplying the
product twice by 40 and once by %. or
finding the factors of 2 to the thirty
secord power plus IA ,294 1861 ,297. Col
burn Immediately gave GIL 6,700,4l7,
and when asked the factors OF 247 .4s3. re-
piled insfantaneously, "941 and 263, and
they are the only factors" Such prob
lens as rising 8 t.. the sixteenth power.
giving the square root of 106.929 or the
cube root of 26S, 1886. l75 were solved in a
moment. At this period Colburn was
ignorant of the ordinary rules of arithme-
tic. and could not tell how or why partc-
ular processes came into his mind. though
later he could analyze and describe his
methods. Once. when bidd, n to multiply
II .734 by 543. his manner provoked a
question. and it was found that, for some
reason which he could not explain. he was
obtaining the result by multiplying Co.,
202 by 1871.
The late Mr.. George Parker Bidder
cultivated his remarkable faculty to
highly useful purpose. When in his SIKH
wear he used to amuse himself by count
ing up TO 100, 1000, then to .000. 900: by
degrees he accustomed himself TO cOnten-
plate the relations of high numbers. and
in 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 10
we read that he answered in two minutes
the question: what is the interest of
f4,4i4 for 4.4l4 days at 4 IL per cent.
per annum ?" Answer, e., 4S4 les. ) Lid.
A few months later, when he was not yet
/ years old. he was asked: ''Iow long
would cistern one mile cube be filling if
receiving from river 120 gallons per
minute without intermissiOn ?'' Tn two
minutes he gave the correct answer-14,-
800 years. 80 days, ~ hours and 46 min-
utes. A year later he divided correctly,
in less than minute 46S. 562 ,4l3.563 by
9,076. AT twelve years of age he an
swered in less than minute the question:
If distance of 9 81 inches is passed over
in second of time, how many inches
will be passed over in 366 days, 5 hours,
4S minutes, 81 seconds2 Much more sur
prising. however. was his success, when
Is years old, in dealing with the question
What is the cube root of S97 ,339, 273.974
002. 1873? He obtained the answer in 2 l-2
minutes, viz, 964, 537.
Jedediah Buxton was another prOdigious
calculator, more remarkable i'm some re-
spects then either Colburn or Bidder. He
never learned TO write. and in other
branches of education was as backward
as boy of 10, while his mental faculties
were slow. saving always his faculty of
calculation. So completely was he alb
sorbed in his theme that he took little
cognizance of external objects save as
they suggested numbers. Thus, if
period of time or the age of man were
spoken of. Buxton at once announced that
''that made so many seconds" and dis
lance was to him so many hair-breadths.
BY walking over the fields of Sir John
Rhodes's lordship of Elinton-his step
was as infallible as a surveyors 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
As to each side of an inch. He had the
faculty of being able to rest calcula-
ton at any stage. and take it up the next
morning, 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 GEN.
fury. Among the problems given him to
solve where such as this: "How many
cubical eighths of an inch are there in
quadrangular mass %, l45, 789 yards long,
5.642,732 yards wide, and 1896 yards
thick" an appalling calculation which he
performed mentally. Once he set himself
to doubling a farthing I4O times, and on
another occasion he made himself, to use
his own phrase. drunk with reckoning"
by calculating how many hairs an inch
long. and how many grains of eight diff
ferent sorts of cereals there were in a
mass of 20O. zoo, 0O0, 900 cubic miles, hav-
ing previously counted the hairs and grains
in a single inch, to get his point of de-
parture. What was most curious about
Buxton, perhaps, was his capacity for
carrying on these calculations while con-
versing or listening. At church he only
cared to count the words of the sermon,
and though he watched Garrick closely in
Richard Ill., il was but to reckon the
words in a part.
In 1889 there was shown at Paris the
eleven-year-old son Of Sicilian shepherd,
one Vito Mangiamele. who did some re-
markablo mental calculating. Thus. he
extracted the cube root of 3,796,416 in
half minute. and the tenth root of 1882
475.249 in three minutes and half
Another shepherd boy Jacques Ynandi,
was brought out by Flammarion at Paris
about six wears ago, who answered very
rapidly such questions as "How many
kilometres distance has man eighty years
old travelled through space. with the world