Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1908-05-05
WIZARDS IN FIGURES,
Some Wonderful Feats of Boys
Who Became Famous.
GAUSS WAS A RARE GENIUS.


He Was Not Only One Of the Greatest
Mental Calculators on Record, but
He Was Gifted Mathematician
Dase's Marvellous Mental Work.
When scarcely three years old Gauss.
according to an anecdote told by him.
self, followed mentally a calculation
Of his fathers relative in regard to the
wages of some workmen who were
to be paid for overtime in proportion to
their regular wages, and, detecting a
mistake in the account, he called out,
"Father. the reckoning is wrong; it
makes so much,' naming the exact
amount. The calculations were repeat
ed, and it turned out that the child
was correct, while all who witnessed
the performance were greatly surpris
ed. He retained an extraordinary
ability for mental calculations through
out life and remembered the first few
decimals of the logarithms of all mum.
bers, so that he was able to use the
data Of logarithmic table in his men.
tai calculations, and hence he possess
ed mental slide rule-a unique pos
session.
Gauss was not only one Of the great
est mental calculators on record, but
he excelled equally in all branches of
pure and applied mathematics. At the
age of twenty he discovered the first
rigorous proof Of the fundamental
theorem of algebra, which affirms that
every algebraic equation has as many
roots as its degree, and at the age of
twenty-four he published his great
work on the theory of numbers under
the title ''Disquisitiones Arithmeticae :"
Later in life he turned his attention
principally to applied mathematics, es-
pecially to astronomy and geodesy,
and he is generally regarded as the
last of the great mathematician who
were pre-eminent in nearly all branches
Of mathematical knowledge of his day.
While Gauss was both great. men
tai calculator and great mathemati-
clan and was real Mathematical ,prod-
Icy, we proceed to consider several
who were merely arithmetical prodi-
gies and seemed to have very little
general mathematical ability. The
greatest Of these is Dase, who was
born at Hamburg in 1924 and "seems
to have been little more than human
calculating machine, able to carry on
enormous calculations in his head, but
nearly incapable of understanding the
principles of mathematics and Of very
limited ability outside his chosen
field" His extraordinary ability in
mental calculation is evidenced by the
fact that he was able to multiply men
tally two numbers, each Of which con-
tanned 100 figures. It took him eight
and three-quarters hours to perform
this feat, which stands in class by
itself, as no other arithmetical prodigy
is known to have been able to multiply
two numbers each consisting
Of more than thirty figures. Two
forty-fgure numbers Dase was able
to multiply in forty minutes, while he
would multiply two eight-fgure num-
USIS LII IcSS Iudu OuS luluuIc.
What is most surprising about this
greatest calculator on record is that he
was stupid in mathematics. Petersen
is said to have tried in vain for six
weeks to get the first elements Of
mathematics into his head, and other
eminent mathematician found that he
had very little mathematical ability.
Fortunately he was advised by some
Of the leading mathematician of his
day to turn his extraordinary ability
to scientific uses instead of going
around the country giving public exhi-
billions, career upon which he had
entered at the age Of fifteen. He cal
culated many useful tables and was
engaged on an extensive factor table
at the time of his death. The ease and
speed with which he could count the
numbers of books in a case, the num-
Der of sheep in a herd, ETC., were al
most more surprising that his extraor-
binary ability as mental calculator.
Another well known mental calcula-
tor, having even less mathematical
ability than Dase, is Buxton, who re-
manned illiterate through life, although
his father had some education. He had
a wonderful memory for numbers and
could call off long numbers from right
to left or from left to right with equal
facility. On one occasion he squared
mentally thirty-nine figure number
in two and half months. He was ex-
tremely slow and in this respect re-
sembled negro of the name of
Tom Fuller, who is known as the Vir-
ginia calculator. Although entirely IL
literate, he was able to reduce mentally
years and months to seconds and could
multiply two nine-fgure numbers.
Darboux has called attention to an
infant prodigy. Joseph Bertrand was
born in Paris in 1922 and was such a
delicate child that his parents did not
expect him to arrive at manhood, and
hence his early education was partly
neglected. At the age Of four he was
sick for long time and overheard the
lessons which were given his brother
in the same room. He knew the let
tiers Of the alphabet, but nothing more.
When he was convalescent his parents
brought him a book to look at the pic