Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1937-08-17
STARS, MEN AND ATOMS
Notebook of Science Progress in Field,
Laboratory and Study.
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.

Buxton to work out the correct answer
to the following: In 2O2 $50 OOO,36O cubic
miles there could be placed how many
barley grains, vetches, peas. wheat grains.
oat grains, rye grains, beans, lintels and
human hairs an inch long.
During the whole period from Nav IT
to June 16, 1725. Buxton said he was
drunk with reckoning" over this prob
lem. First he had to determine by eX-
pertinent how many of each of the
articles named would fill a cubic inch.
The farm labOrer'S remarkable faculty
was tested by the British Royal Society.
He had perhaps the strangest one-track
mind in history. Taken to hear sermon
he came away without the slightest idea
Of what it was all about but he knew
exactly the number Of words the min
lister had used. He was taken to the
theater to watch David Garrick. The
play meant nothing to him. but he re-
membered precisely how many steps
each of the actors had taken.
Buxton did not know what figures
looked like on paper For his more COM
plicated problems he invented his own
system of numbers. A thousand million
million was tribe" A thousand mil
lion million tribes was a "cramp' He
could calculate in his head in such
terms as "a million tribes of cramps"
The man never aspired to be anything
higher than a farm Iaborer.
Zerah Colburn. born in Cabot. Vt, in
1904, was very backward boy"
When he was years old it took him
five minutes to figure out in his head
that there are 63 072 900 900 seconds in
1000 years. At the same tender age he
calculated, without pencil or paper, that
there would be 9,139 200 kernels of corn
in field of seven acres with seventeen
rows to the acre. siXty-nine hills to the
row. eight ears to the hill and $50 kernels
to the ear.
Unlike the Predetermined Buxton,
Coburn was an ambitious youngster.
Taken to England he astounded the most
eminent mathematicianS of the day by
such feats as calculating in his head
the tenth power of eight. which he de-
termined was 281.474976 10656.
AS he grew older his strange faculty
declined. When he died at 35 he was
an itinerant Methodist minister.
The faculty is not necessarily asSo-
ciated with lack of intelligence or of
capacity in other directions. For eX-
ample, George Bidder, born in England
in 1926, became one of the most emf
nent engineers of his generation and
for several terms held seat in Parlia-
ment. His most marvellous stunt was
to give an immediate answer to the
problem of how many rays of light
would strike the eye in second, taking
the velocity of light as 10000 miles a
second and wave length of 36918 to
an inch. He replied instantly: 444,-
433 ,651 ,200000 His friends found the
answer was right after figuring on it
for an hour or so.
Then there was Truman H. Stafford,
professor of astronomy at Williams Col
lege during the Civil War. He once
multiplied in his head the number $685.
1865, 1865 1865 by itself and in two minutes
got the answer: 1873, 491 $50, 2O8, 568 $685.
O16658, 291 ,941 583 ,225.
While at work on the problem, accord
ing to an observer, he flew around the
room like top, pulled his pants over
the tops of his boots, bit his hand, rolled
his eyes in their sockets, sometimes
smiled and talked, and sometimes
seemed in intense agony.