Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-04-04
Bidder at His Figures
GEORGE BIDDER.
the son of a Dew

question. w hat Is the interest on t4.441 tor
4,444 days at AZ per cent
At twelve on the London Stock Exchange
he answered this problem in one minute. |.
the pendulum of clock vibrates the distance
of nine inches and three quarters in second
of time. how many inches will it vibrate IT.
the course of seven years, two hours.
minute. and hfty-six seconds, each year of three
hundred and sxty-five days. five hours. forty
eight minutes, and fifty-hve seconds"
Within the minute the boy had answered
correctly. his result being 2.I5s,8s2I44A: In
miles. 5000, miles, 900 yards, two feet and
three quarters of an inch
Euler's Wonderful Memory
I .EONHARD EULER, who was born in I7o-
and died in 1888 at St. Petersburg. where
he spent his life as teacher of great power
and prolific writer. was another instance OF
the genuine mathematician endowed with al
most superhuman powers. He left more than
two hundred manuscript treatises on his favor
lite subject. and the bulk of the works pub
lshed by his academy between I727 and I78;
were from his pen. In old age he totally
blind Then he carried in his memory table
of the first six powers of the series of natural
numbers up to Ioo."
1t is related that on one occasion two of
Euler's students attempted to calculate
verging series. As they advanced they found
they disagreed in the result by a unit in the
fifteenth figure The question was referred to
Euler. who decided to make the calculation
He did this mentally. and his result was found
to be correct
A Child Mathematician
THE best attested case of great mathemati-
cal computing powers in children was that
of Vito Mangiame the son of Sicilian peas
ant, who was only eleven years old He was
examined by committee of French scientists.
including such men as Arago Libri and La
CroiX He found the cube root of 3.7o6.4I6 In
half minute. and the tenth root of 287.475.
24o in three minutes.
Then came the poser. What number has
the following proportions.-that. if its cube
is added to five times its square. and then
fortv-two times the number and the number
forty be subtracted from the result, the re-
mainder is zero:"
Arago repeated the question: but while he
was repeating the last word of it the boy an
swered correctly. The number IS five
Repeating Newspaper
DR.. MACkLIN used to tell a story of man
proud OF his great mental retent1veneSS
He offered to give any proof of it desired. and
asked to read newspaper and then to
repeat every word of it from memory. The
host held the paper while the man repeated
it verbatim and every word in its proper place.
The surprise of the host, however, was even
greater and his skepticism taxed beyond bounds
when the visitor. to show how easy the feat
had been, offered to repeat the words back
ward.
That is impossible"
Not at all If you will listen. III do it.
And he did it Beginning at the end of the
last word of the last column he went to the
beginning of the first word of the first column
without an error DR. Mackn fails to give
this prodigy's name
Antonio Magliabechi
SIMILAR ability was possessed by Antonio
- Magliabechi who was born at Florence in
1858 His father and mother We're very poor.
and he apprenticed to a green grocer.
Though he had never learned to read. he used
to spend considerable time IN a booksellers
stall. One day the proprietor asked why he
STAYED there SO much. and learned that the
lad could not read. Surprised. he asked why
he handled the books SO much. and was told
that the boy found pleasure he could not
resist just in looking at the printed pages
The bookseller forthwith took Magliabechi
into his employ. taught him to read. and
shortly he secured work in library 1t was
then that his marvellous memory was dIscov-
cred. 1t seemed as if every book he read was
textually retained in his mind.
A writer of the period tells that man of
Florence had lent Magliabechi the manu-
script of book to read Sometime later. pre-
tending he had lost the manuscript, he came
to Magliabechi with very long face and told
of his loss. 1t made him very sad, he said.
because he had no other copy. He supposed
he would have to make research and write it
all over again Magliabechi told him to be
comforted he thought he could remember it
well enough to give him a copy And the