Math Wizard Shakuntala Devi Celebrates 84th Birthday with Google Doodle

Math Wizard Shakuntala Devi Celebrates 84th Birthday with Google Doodle
Those who are not “connected” (have internet access) may not know what a “google doodle” is. The world’s most popular search engine, google, has a plain fast-loading splash page that features the colorful logo of the company’s iconic name.

However, on special occasions such as Saint Patricks’ day, Christmas, 4th of July, and other notable events such as the birthday of Shakuntala Devi – the world’s fastest thinking mathematical mind. Mrs. Devi was born 84-years ago on November 4, 1929 to an impoverished family with no means of providing her a formal education.

In 1977, Devi made world news when she was able to extract the 23rd root of a number consisting of 201 digits all in her head! She later went toe-to-toe with a super computer to see who could cube the nine digit number “188138517” the fastest. For those who don’t recall what cubing a number means, Devi was able to perform this math calculation in her head: 188138517 x 188138517 x 188138517. She was able to complete the calculation ahead of the computer. She is dubbed as the world’s fastest ‘human computer’.

With the gift to calculate the cube root of 61,629,875, and the seventh root of 170,859,375 without writing it down or using a calculator, Shakuntala Devi’s abilities were studied by Arthur Jensen, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley in 1988.

Shakuntala Devi figured in the Guiness Book of World Record for her outstanding ability and wrote numerous books like ‘Fun with Numbers’, ‘Astrology for You’, ‘Puzzles to Puzzle You’, and ‘Mathablit’.

ON The Web::
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/internet/Shakuntala-Devis-84th-birthday-celebrated-with-a-doodle/articleshow/25203546.cms