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A new movie is coming up on the life of Shakuntala Devi, who was called the Human Computer in 1950s and '60s

  1. She grew up in a poor family,
  2. Never went to school,
  3. Never formally learned as a how to read or write
  4. But later was called the Human Computer.
  5. Her father worked as a trapeze artist, lion tamer, tightrope walker, and magician in a circus.
  6. He discovered his daughter's ability to memorize numbers while teaching her a card trick when she was about three years old.
  7. Her father left the circus and took her on road shows that displayed her ability at calculation. She did this without any formal education.
  8. She could calculate any size number of a mathematical calculation in her mind accurately.
  9. At the age of six she demonstrated her arithmetic abilities at the University of Mysore.
  10. In 1980 she multiplied two 13-digit numbers = 7,686,369,774,870 × 2,465,099,745,779 accurately.
  11. She wrote several books from cooking for men to homosexuality in 1950s and '60s.
  12. She was also a noted astrologer
  13. She contested a few national elections challenging the top leader in different constituencies and received a good share of votes.
  14. She died at 1983 at age 83. [en.wikipedia.org]

I attended a couple of shows of her as a kid.

St-Sinner 9 Aug 4
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6 comments

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1

she was amazing

1

She sounds amazing, I shall look her up.

1

As I have stated here several times, the human brain (AKA God) works in mysterious ways.

0

Sounds like she was a savant.

Savant syndrome is a rare condition in which someone with significant mental disabilities?
Maybe. But there is no record of her disabilities known, written anywhere.

0

The movie trailer

. . . the below comment not intended to detract from her accomplishments . . .

@FearlessFly
Which below comment?

@St-Sinner . . . the (only one below) book comment

1

. . . a very good read :

[goodreads.com]

@K9Kohle789 . . . whilst roaming at an art festival, I saw a woman with a T-shirt -- "I'm an English Major, YOU do the Math!" 🙂

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