The Portland daily press., 1896-02-19
BOY woNosRAT FIGURES.
Alfred Blum Does Prodigious ''sums" in
His Head,

Alfred Blum says he has "made his
living and paid for his clothss," ever
since he was 4 years old, by his expert
ness at figures. He is now IS years old,
and recently secured employment in the
auditors department of the New York
Central Railroad, by demonstrating what
ne can do at addition and u ultiplication.
He is little fellow for his age, and he
has bullying forehead. which stops
psychologists on the street, who kindly
inform him that his occupation in life
should be mathematics.
There is nothing uncanny in his
genius, and while he cannot be called q
phenomenon, he has remarkable ability
at mental calculation. He does all or
binary sums without the aid of pencil
and paper, and his results are almost in
Simultaneous. His mental process of cal
culating is the same as that of the orGi-
nary mind. but his work is the telegraph
as com pared to freight train. In an
hour last night he convinced a Mail and
Express reporter that he will always be
able to ''make his living and pay for his
clothes" in any business community.
He adds columns of three figures as
fast as they can he called off or put on
paper, or, if the sum is placsd before
him. as fast as his eye can take in each
figure.
This sum in subtraction was given:
Take 49, TIC, $40 from 60. 1871, 037. The sum
was placed before him on paper and with
out any apparent time for calculation
he began at the left hand figure and put
down the result as fast as his pencil
could work. Addition and subtraction,
lie said Were too easy to waste time on
but that multiplication was where he
could show real work.
FEATS IN MULTIPLICATION.
"Mulsiply n by 49' He repeated the
question quickly, and gave the answer as
soon az he had got the words "forty-
nine'' out of his mouth.
Multiply 81 by &c. He replied in one
breath: Multiply 81 by s6-that's 1862
and I know that's right, for I did it
twice.
In multiplying three figures by three a
little time was required. Multiply 1856
by $751;" He repeated the ! example and
paused. Fifteen seconds later he said,
''The answer is 207, 2S2.''
He did several sums of this class, the
time required for his calculation being
from ten to twenty seconds.
In four figures he required the example
to De placed before him; but he arri we'd
at the result by mental calculations. In
this work he made two errors, Of one
figure each, in five examples, but correct
ed each error before the example was
figured out on paper.
He was given this: Multiply 2, Sd by
5, 662." In sixty five seconds he gave the
answer as -, 664 $685. The correct result
is 10, ga, 66S. After giving the answer he
seemed conscious of the error, and cor
rected it b3fore the calculation was made
on paper.
The newspaper man, after five minutes
of hard labor, calculated that 4, S37 null
tiplied by 1855 gave 14,055,6 l5 He wiped
the SWEET from his brow and gave the ex-
ample to the boy. In forty five seconds
he said: "The answer Is Is, 035, 715." Ten
minutes of further struggle proved that
he was right.
THE BOYS HISTORY.
brought up in Albany where his parents
live. He has had a common school edu-
cation and says he went as far as algebra
in mathematics. He says he is acquaint-
ed with most of the great men in the
Legislature at Albany, and all the news.
paper men. and that he has had s'lots of
write-ups." He keeps soraphook. He
has given several public exhibitions of
his talent, and "a few nights ago appeared
before the Railroad YIN. G. A. at Forty
fifth street and Madison avenue. He says
phrenologist stopped him in the street
one day, felt of the bumps on his head.
and told him that If he didn't follow
mathematics as profession he should
enter politics, he could successfully oper-
ate in buth parties. He regards this as a
great complimentary York Mail AM
Express.