The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1906-03-03
MARVELS AT FIGURES.
lightning Calculators Who Were
Gifted by Nature
From London Globe.

From London Globe
George Parker Bidder was born in 1856
at Morton Hampstead in Devonshire, where
his father carried on a small business as a
stonemason. At the early age of four he
showed a most extraordinary ability for
calculation, which with slight assistance
from an elder brother assumed quite
phenomenal proportions. His peculiar tai
ents soon attracted general attention, and
his father found it much more profitable
employment to carry his son about the
country and exhibit him as the ''calculat-
ing phenomenon than following his trade.
In this way young Bidder visited many
parts of England, astonishing the different
people who came to question him by the
wonderful rapidity with which he was able
to answer, without external aid of any de-
scription, the most difficult questions. of
these the following are few of the most
extraordinary examples. If a flea spring
two feet and three inches in every hop,
how many hops must it take to 60 around
the world, the circumference being %, 02O
miles, and how long would it be perform
ing the journey, allowing it to take sixty
hops every minute without intermission :?
Answer So, 713, 600 hops and l year, 314
days, 13 hours and 20 minutes.
The following question was solved by
him in forty seconds: Suppose the ball at
the top of st. Paul's cathedral to be six
feet in diameter, what did the gliding cost
at 81 pence per square inch? Answer,
E237 los. Id
The following in one minute and twenty
seconds: Suppose a city to be Illuminated
with 5000 lamps, each lamp to consume
one pint of oil every four hours in success
sion, how many gallons would they con.
sumo in forty years ? Answer, 1O9, 49,
$50 gallons.
During one of his exhibition tours, for
tunately for the lad, his performances at
tracted the attention of eminent scholars,
who, after making inquiries, undertook his
education. He was attached to the ord
nance survey for short time and after
ward was associated with Stephenson, the
| great engineer.
Some years after he entered parliament,
| and numerous stories are extant of his
wonderful skill in detecting flaw in some
elaborate sets of calculations, whereby he
was often enabled to upset an opponents S
case, or at other times be would establish
his own case by arguments based upon
mathematical data, possibly only at the
moment placed before him 1t is said that
on one occasion an opposing counsel asked
that he might not be allowed to remain in
the committee room on the ground that
mature had endowed him with qualities
that did not place his opponents on fair
footing
After taking leading part in many im-
portant engineering works he died at Dart
mouth September 20, 1873.
Another of these extraordinary children,
between whom and Bidder honors were
almost equally divided, was Zereh Colburn,
born at Cabot, VT, September l, 1904.
Signs of his wonderful power appeared at
a very tender age The discovery was acci-
dentally made by his father, who was much
surprised one day to hear him repeating
the product of several numbers, although
at the time he had received no other in
struc,ion than such as could be obtained at
a small country school whose curriculum
did not include writing or ciphering. He
thereupon proposed variety Of arithmeti-
cal questions to his son, all Of which the
child answered with remarkable facility
and correctness. At the age Of eight the
boy was able to solve most difficult ques-
,ions by the mere operation of his mind.
Many persons of the first eminenee for their
knowledge in mathematics made point of
seeing and conversing with him, and they
proposed to him great variety of questions
to test his marvellous powers. Among them
were the following:
Give the square root of 999, 999. After
hesitating little he replied 999, ,999,
OOO. OOl aud observed that he produced
this result by multiplying the square of
81, 037 by the square of q. He was
then asked to multiply the answer twice by
40 and once by %, task which he ac-
complished successfully, though the an
swer consists of seventeen figures.
Name the cube root of 4l3, 993, 34S,
677. To this he gave the correct answer
in FIVE seconds. How many times would
coach wheel twelve feet in circumference
turn around in $50 miles, and how many
minutes in forty eight years To the first
he replied in two seconds ll2, $40, and to
the second, before the question could be
written down, %, 22S, 500. What are
the factors of 247, 4S3? To this he re-
| Piled 94l and 263, which are the onl y fac