The Mathematics of Passion and Practice
Rea,
Would you believe that humans used to be faster at math than computers? Today, computers can perform billions of calculations per second, solving complex problems faster than we can even read them. It seems impossible that a human could ever compete with a machine at mathematics.
But there was a time - and a remarkable person - who proved otherwise. Her name was Shakuntala Devi, and her story begins in Bangalore, India, where her father worked as a circus performer. When she was just three years old, he discovered her amazing talent for numbers while teaching her a card trick. Without any formal schooling, she began performing shows demonstrating her incredible mathematical abilities. By age six, she was already amazing professors with her calculations.
As she grew older, Devi traveled the world, demonstrating how she could solve incredibly complex mathematical problems in her head. But her most famous achievement came in 1977, when she went head-to-head against UNIVAC 1108, one of the most powerful computers of its time. The challenge? Finding the cube root of 188,132,517 - that means figuring out what number, when multiplied by itself three times, equals 188,132,517.
Think about that for a moment. If someone asked you to multiply 5 × 5 × 5, you could work out that it equals 125. But Devi had to work backwards - looking at a huge number and figuring out what number, when cubed, would create it. The answer was 573, and she found it in just seconds - beating the computer and earning herself a place in the Guinness Book of World Records!
But what made Devi truly special wasn’t just her mathematical speed - it was her deep love and understanding of numbers. For her, mathematics wasn’t just calculations; it was like a first language. While many people see math as a foreign language they have to translate in their minds, Devi saw the patterns and relationships between numbers as naturally as we see words in a story.
In her book “Figuring: The Joy of Numbers,” she shared how this understanding came from both her natural talent and years of passionate practice. When you’re working with numbers in class, remember Shakuntala Devi. Her remarkable abilities didn’t come just from being “gifted” - they came from combining her natural talent with passion, practice, and a true joy in understanding how numbers work together.
Love, Abba
