Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1901-07-04

duQlDly, III OTueI Iudl Ms HtluOu
might be discovered. 1t then appear
ed curiously enough. that he went to
work in a very roundabout way. First
he multiplied the 456 by 5, which pro-
duced 22S0; this he again multiplied
| by 20, and found the product to be
| As, 500. OF course he might much more
readily have achieved this result by
simply adding two noughts to the null
| tiplicand. This he evidently did not
! know. However, he next went on to
multiply the number he had now ar
rived at by 8, which gave him the
sum of the multiplicand multiplied
| by 800; and it then remained for him
to multiply it by the remaining rs.
This he effected by the awkward pro-
cess of multiplying by IS the $3.50
which was the product obtained by
his first multiplication OF 456 by g.
The product thus obtained he then
addea to the 136S00, which was the
sum Il 456 multiplied by 800 This
| produced III, 900 as the sum of $50
multiplied by 375. 1t remained for
him, therefore. to multiply the origi.
nal number again by and add the
sum of it to 171,O00. and by this Ger.
tainly rather cumbrous process he
found the product of 456 multiplied by
37S to be 172,36S.
Jedediah had no more general
knowledge than any average peasant
boy of ten years of age, and showed
no memory for anything but figures.
He was sometimes asked when he re-
turned from church if he could repeat
the text or any part of the sermon.
but he could never remember a single
sentence. In one matter only except
ing his figures, did he ever show the
slightest interest, but his desire to
see the king and the royal family
was strong enough to induce him.
when fortyseven years of age, to
walk to London for that purpose. He
was entertained by the editor of The
Gentleman's Magazine at St. Johns
Gate and exhibited to the Royal So
ctety, the members of which he after
wards referred to as the vOlk of
Siety court" During his stay in Lon.
don he was taken to Drury Lane
theater to see Richard H." but
neither the novelty nor the splendor
Of the show, nor the exhibition of
passion, made any visible impression
on him, and he occupied himself in
counting the number of words which
Garrick uttered during the perform
ance. The Gentleman's Magazine for
June, 1854, informed the public that
Jedediah had returned to the place of
his birth without regretting anything
which be had left behind in London,
cheerfully returning to his customary
work, and quite convinced that a slice
of rusty bacon afforded more delici.
Gus repast than anything to be OBJ
tanned in the great city.
Another untaught arithmetical
genius, Zerah Colburn, whose abnor.
NAL development raises an interesting
problem, was the son of an American
peasant. He was brought to London
by his father in 1912, when eight
years old, when he was examined and
his peculiar powers were tested by
Francis Baily and other skilIfuI math-
IilllJlIldIlS IL was lOuIu LuaJ al
though he was so ignorant of the ordi
nary rules of arithmetic that he could
not perform on paper a simple sum in
multiplication or division, yet that he
could mentally multiply any number
less than ten into itself successfully
nine times, and give the results faster
than the person appointed to record
them could take them down. He
multiplied eight into itself fifteen
times, or, to use technical terms,
raised it to the sixteenth power, and
the result, consisting of fifteen digits,
was found to be right in every figure
This was astonishing enough, but he
wa able to do things even more won
derful When asked what number,
multiplied by itself, gave 106,929, he
answered before the original number
could be writer down, that it was
number, multiplied twice into Itself
1927. And again, when asked what
ly, what was the cuberoot of that ar
ray of figures he replied with equal
facility and promptness that it was
645.
The mathematical experts who 4,
were examining the boy found that 1t
was impossible to find the cube root
Of these nine figures in the shortest
aud most convenient way, in less than
three or four minutes But what most
surprised the mathematician was
that he could almost as readily an.
swer questions for which they had not .
been able to provide any systematic
procedure themselves. For instance
he was asked to name two numbers
which multiplied together, would give
the number 247, 4S3 land he immedi-
ately named 941 and 263, which are
said to be the only two numbers
which will do so And when asked
to name a number which would divide
960S3 exactly, he unhesitatingly re-
piled that no number would do so If
any of our fundamentally minded
readers Will address themselves to
t1ic MCCLELLAN, will TINT