The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-05-02
ZERAH COLBURN.
He Was the Wonderful Boy Calcu-
lator, but Sometimes the Slow
Going Student Beats the Prodigy
in the End.
81 EMILY FORD.

1T is a bit of solid comfort for a
schoolboy or girl to realize that if they
are piodding along patiently in mathe-
MATES and once get the multiplication
table fixed in the memory, their work
will stay by them and be of practical
use. If this Dlodding seems dull work
IL Is Wen 10 bring to mind how short
lived mas been the glory and of how
little Work-a-day use the powers of the
infant prodIgies" or lightning calcu-
idtOIs tnat - dazzled our Srandpar-
ents IN the earlier part of this century.
Take, for instance, the case of Zerah
Colburn, born in 1904 at Cabut. a little
town in Vermont When he was years
old his father accidentally discovered
that the boy, who had as vet never
had single lesson in the two RS"
Crighting and rithmetic'). could solve
IN an instant. mentally. problems that
would have puzzled his elders even
with pencil and paper in hand The
news of this infant prodigy soon spread
through the neighborhood. and the
father was persuaded to take the boy
on tour of the United States. Many
persons renowned for their knowledge
of mathematics and eminent as phil
osophers FASTENED to see him. and were
astonished at his extraordinary powers.
In the midst of his play they gave him
such problems as raising the number
eight (S) progressively up to the 18th
power. and even in the last result viz:
PSI. 474, $40. no. Csc he was right in
every figure.
Think OF this for moment. bows
this computed in the child's mind so
quickly that the person who was writ
ing down the answers asked him to give
out the figures more slowly. as he could
not write them down as swiftly as they
were given. He would tell in this same
quick manner the exact product arising
from the multiplication of any number
consisting of six or seven places of fig
ures, and all the factors of. which it is
composed. Not only was he thus mar
velously quick al the raising of powers.
but he would in a twinkling extract the
square and cube roots of the numbers
proposed and determine whether it was
a prime number. One day a very wise
set Of men came with specially prepared
questions and asked the lad to name
the factors which produced the number
Pa ,4S3, which he did at once, naming
the numbers 941 and 263. which, in fact,
are the only two which viii produce it,
Now comes a ''ppser." Give said
the questioners. the factors of 36.0SS.'
Almost Immediately came the reply:
There are none" and sure enough this
is the case. as 36.0S3 is a prime num-
Der, and. therefore, of course has no
IdCLOIS-
Zerah would move his lips when COM
putting. showing that he was actually
multiplying, just as an ordinary boy
would. but when asked 10 tell other
lads just how he did the sum, replied
that he did not know how the answer
came in his mind. A pencil and paper
were given him, but he could not do the
simplest example in multiplication or
division; neither did he know rules.
Now comes the comfort for the ordi-
nary boy or girl, though it must have
been very cold comfort for Young Col
burns parents. The boy was put to
school. hoping that he might become a
great teacher, and finally a learned pro-
fessor. However, he never could tell
how to help on others. The hope was
that as his mind matured he could
throw light to help boys and girls in
the may boys of factors. Prime num-
hers, prime factors and the like.