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Information about Mental Calculator

Mental calculators are people with a prodigious ability in some area of mental calculation, such as multiplying large numbers or factoring large numbers. Some mental calculators are autistic savants, with a narrow area of great skill and poor mental development in other directions, but many are people of normal mental development who have simply developed advanced calculating ability. A good many are also experienced mathematicians, linguists, writers, and so on.

Mental calculators were in great demand in research centers such as CERN before the advent of modern electronic calculators and computers. See, for instance, the 1983 book The Great Mental Calculators, whose introduction was written by Hans Eberstark.

Some of the world's best mental calculators gather every two years to compete for the Mental Calculation World Cup.

Michael O'Boyle, an American psychologist previously working in Australia and now at Texas Tech University, has recently used MRI scanning of blood flow during mental operation in mathematical prodigies to display startling results. These math prodigies achieve blood flow to parts of the brain responsible for mathematical operations at six to seven times the typical flow (see Cognitive Brain Research, October, 2005).

Mental calculators from history

Mental calculators in fiction

In Frank Herbert's novel Dune, specially trained mental calculators known as Mentats have replaced mechanical computers completely. Several important supporting characters in the novel, namely Piter De Vries and Thufir Hawat, are Mentats.

Andrew Jackson "Slipstick" Libby is a calculating prodigy in Robert A. Heinlein's story "Misfit".

In Haruki Murakami's novel Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, a class of mental calculators known as Calcutecs perform cryptography in a sealed-off portion of their brains, the results of which they are unable to access from their normal waking consciousness.

In the Fox television show Malcolm in the Middle, Malcolm Wilkerson displays astounding feats of automatic mental calculation, which causes him to fear his family will see him as a "freak," and causes his brother to ask, "Is Malcolm a robot?"

In Darren Aronofsky's film, Pi, Maximillian Cohen is asked a few times by a young child with a calculator to do large multiplications and divisions in his head, to which he promptly answers.

Mental calculators in competition

The Mental Calculation World Cup is an international competition to attempt to find the world's best mental calculator, and also the best at specific types of mental calculation, such as multiplication or calendar reckoning.

The top three calculators from the inaugural championships, held in 2004, were:

1 Robert Fountain
2 Jan van Koningsveld
3 Alberto Coto


The top three calculators from the second championships, held in 2006, were:

1 Robert Fountain
2 Jan van Koningsveld
3 Gert Mittring


The Mind Sports Olympiad has staged an annual world championships since 1997.

MSO mental calculation gold medal winners

1997 Karl Galle
1998 Robert Fountain
1999 George Lane
2000 Robert Fountain
2001 John Rickard
2002 George Lane
2003 George Lane
2004 Gert Mittring
2005 Gert Mittring
2006 Gert Mittring
2007 Gert Mittring


The Mind Sports Organisation recognises three grandmasters of mental calculation: Robert Fountain (1999), George Lane (2001) and Gert Mittring (2005).

See also

External links

Mental calculation is the practice of doing mathematical calculations using only the human brain, with no help from any computing devices. It is practiced as a sport in the Mind Sports Olympiad and has its own world championships – the Mental Calculation World Cup.
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Multiplication is the mathematical operation of adding together multiple copies of the same number. For example, four multiplied by three is twelve, since three sets of four make twelve:


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factorization (British English: also factorisation) or factoring is the decomposition of an object (for example, a number, a polynomial, or a matrix) into a product of other objects, or factors, which when multiplied together give the original.
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An autistic savant (historically described as idiot savant) is a person with both autism and Savant Syndrome. Savant Syndrome describes a person having both a severe developmental or mental handicap but with extraordinary mental abilities not found in most people.
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mathematician is a person whose primary area of study and research is the field of mathematics.

Problems in mathematics

Some people incorrectly believe that mathematics has been fully understood, but the publication of new discoveries in mathematics continues at an immense
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For the journal, see .
Linguistics is the scientific study of language, which can be theoretical or applied. Someone who engages in this study is called a linguist.
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The European Organization for Nuclear Research (French: Organisation européenne pour la recherche nucléaire), commonly known as CERN (see Naming), pronounced
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Hans Eberstark is an Austrian linguist, translator, and mental calculator.

Eberstark often lectured on language and translation in Europe, and was famous for asking someone whose first language was a small local dialect of German (particularly Swiss-German, of which there
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Mental Calculation World Cup is an international competition of mental calculators.

Mental Calculation World Cup 2004

The First Mental Calculation World Cup was held in Annaberg-Buchholz, Germany on 30 October, 2004. There were 17 participants from 10 countries.
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A psychologist is a person who studies psychology, the systematic investigation of the human mind, including behavior, cognition, and affect. Psychologists are usually categorized under a number of different fields, the most well-recognized being clinical
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Anthem
Advance Australia Fair [1]


Capital Canberra

Largest city Sydney
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Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), formerly referred to as magnetic resonance tomography (MRT) and, in scientific circles and as originally marketed by companies such as General Electric, nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (NMRI) or NMR zeugmatography imaging
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Blood is a specialized biological fluid consisting of red blood cells (also called RBCs or erythrocytes), white blood cells (also called leukocytes) and platelets (also called thrombocytes) suspended in a complex fluid medium known as blood plasma.
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In animals, the brain or encephalon (Greek for "in the skull"), is the control center of the central nervous system, responsible for behavior. The brain is located in the head, protected by the skull and close to the primary sensory apparatus of vision, hearing,
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Alexander Craig Aitken, FRS FRSE FRSL (1 April 1895 – 3 November 1967) was one of New Zealand's greatest mathematicians. He studied for a PhD at the University of Edinburgh, where his thesis was considered so impressive that he was awarded a DSc in 1926, and was elected a
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George Parker Bidder (born June 14, 1806 in Moretonhampstead; died September 28, 1878) was an English engineer and calculating prodigy.

He displayed a natural skill at calculation from an early age.
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Shakuntala Devi is a calculating prodigy who was born on November 4, 1939 in Bangalore, India. Her father worked in a circus as a trapeze and tightrope performer, and later as a human cannonball.
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Jedediah Buxton (1707-1772), was a noted English mental calculator, born at Elmton, near Chesterfield, in Derbyshire. Although his father was schoolmaster of the parish, and his grandfather had been the vicar, his education had been so neglected that he could not write; and his
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Zerah Colburn (1804-1839) was a famous child prodigy of the 19th century. Born in Cabot, Vermont and educated at Westminster School in London, Zerah was thought to be mentally retarded until the age of seven.
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Johann Martin Zacharias Dase (June 23, 1824, Hamburg - September 11, 1861, Hamburg) was a German mental calculator

The famous mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss investigated his abilities.
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Hans Eberstark is an Austrian linguist, translator, and mental calculator.

Eberstark often lectured on language and translation in Europe, and was famous for asking someone whose first language was a small local dialect of German (particularly Swiss-German, of which there
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Salo Finkelstein (1896 or 1897, date of death unknown) was a mental calculator, ranked eighth in the "100 Greatest Mental Calculators". [1] He was born in Lodz (then within the Russian Empire, now Poland) to a Jewish family.
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Thomas Fuller (1608–August 16, 1661) was an English churchman and historian.

His Life

The eldest son of Thomas Fuller, rector of Aldwinkle St Peter's, Northamptonshire, he was born at his father's rectory and was baptized on June 19 1608.
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Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss

Carl Friedrich Gauss, painted by Christian Albrecht Jensen
Born 30 March 1777(1777--)
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Arthur F. Griffith (30 July 1880 - 25 December 1911), nicknamed "Pooze," was a calculating prodigy born July 30, 1880 in Milford, Kosciusko County, Indiana. He could count to 25,000 by age 5.
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Jacques Inaudi (October 15, 1867 - November 10, 1950) was an Italian calculating prodigy.

He was born in Onorato, Piedmont, Italy. As a child he was a sheepherder but showed aptitude for mental calculations.
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Willem Klein (1912-1986) also known as Wim Klein or under his stage names Pascal and Willy Wortel, was famous for being able to carry out very complicated calculations in his head very fast.
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Daniel McCartney (September 10, 1817 - November 15, 1887) was a man who may have had what is now known as hyperthymesia.

McCartney was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Daniel was legally blind and lived with his relatives throughout his lifetime.
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Truman Henry Safford (6 January 1836-1901) was an American calculating prodigy. In later life he was an observatory director.

He was born in Royalton, Vermont, USA on 6 January, 1836. At an early age he attracted public attention by his remarkable calculation powers.
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Daniel Paul Tammet (b. January 31, 1979; London, England) is a British high-functioning autistic savant gifted with a facility for mathematical calculations, sequence memory, and natural language learning. He was born with congenital childhood epilepsy.
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