The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1906-11-21
MARVELS AT FIGURES
LIGHTNING CALCuLAToRS WHO WE'RE
GIFTED BY NATURE.
Two Boys Whose Peculiar Talents
Attracted General Attention-some
of the Dimcult Tests Through which
They Passed Successfully.


They Passed Successfully.
George Parker Bidder was born in
1S06 at Morton Hampstead, in Devon.
shire, where his father carried on a
small business as stonemason. At the
early age of four he showed most eX.
traordinary ability for calculation,
which with slight assistance from an
elder brother assumed quite phenom
enal proportions. His peculiar talents
soon attracted general attention, and
his father found Ii 4 much more prof
table employment to carry his son
about the country and exhibit him as
the Calculating phenomenon" than fol-
lowing his trade. In this way young
Bidder visited many parts Of England,
astonishing the different people who
came to question him by the wonder
full rapidity with which he was able
TO answer, without external aid of any
description, the most difficult ques.
tlons. or these the following are a few
of the most extraordinary examples:
If flea spring two feet and three
must it take to go around the world,
the circumference being 25,020 miles,
and how long would it be performing
the journey, allowing ii to take sixty
hops every minute without intermis-
sion? Answer, 5S,713,G00 hops and l
year, 314 days, 13 hours and 90 min
utes.
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 3la pence per square
inch? Answer, fo37 los. Id
The following in one minute and
twenty seconds: Suppose city to be II.
Illuminated with 9,099 lamps, each lamp
to consume one pint of oil every four
hours in succession. how many gal
Ions would they consume in forty
years? Answer, 100, ,4S9,050 gallons.
Another curious question was: Sup
pose the earth to consist of 917,000,000
inhabitants and suppose they die in
thirty years and four months, how
many have returned to dust since the
time of Adam, computing it to be $3.50
years? Multiply the answer by 90.
During one of his exhibition tours,
fortunately for the lad, his perform
ances attracted the attention of emf
nent scholars. who. after making in
quiries, subsequently undertook his
education. He was attached to the
ordnance survey for short time and
afterward was associated with Ste
| phenson, the great engineer.
Some years after he entered parlia.
ment, and numerous stories are extant
of his wonderful skill in detecting q
| flaw In some elaborate sets of calcula.
tons, whereby he was often enabled to
upset an opponents case, or at other
| times ne would establish his own case
by arguments based upon mathemat.
ical 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 oppo,
nents on fair footing"
After taking a leading part In many
important engineering works he died al
Dartmouth Sept. 90, 1878.
Another of these extraordinary chill
dren, between whom and Bidder hon
ors were almost equally divided, was
Zereh Colburn, born at,Cabot Vt, Sept
1, 1904. Signs of his wonderful power
appeared at very tender age. The
discovery was accidentally made by
his father, who was much surprised
one day to hear him repeating the prod
uct of several numbers, although at the
time he had received no other instruc.
ton than such as could be obtained at
small country school whose curricu-
lum did not include writing or cipher.
ing. He thereupon proposed variety
of arithmetical questions to his son, all
of which the child answered with re.
markable facility and correctness. Al
the age of eight the hoy was able tC
solve most difficult questions by the
mere operation of his mind. Many
knowledge in mathematics made O
point of seeing and converSing witt
him, and they proposed to him a great
variety of questions to test his mar
velous powers. Among them were the
following:
Give the square root of 10000. Aft
er hesitating little he replied 099,999,
000,001 and observed that he produced
this result by multiplying the square OF
37,037 by the square of 81. He was
then asked to multiply the answer
twice by 40 and once by %, tasl
which he accomplished successfully
though the answer consists of seven
teen figures.
Name the cube root of 1898, ,34S,
6T7. To this he gave the correct an
swer in five seconds. How many times
would q coach wheel twelve feet II
circumference turn around in 256 miles
and how many minutes in forty-elgh
years? To the first he replied in two
seconds 1860, and to the second, be
fore the question could be writer
down, 25,22S,S00 What are the fac
tors Of 247.4S3? To this he replied OF
and 2G3, which are the only factors.-
London Globe.
r...o H., Gn.,icIou
Wlggs-Why do you always regart
bin with suspicion? Wagg-Well, ev
cry time | see him he has a dilferen
,n,I,rnlIo phiIodnlnhio Rncnr1