Things you need to know about Shakuntala Devi
‘Shakuntala Devi’ is famously known as the ‘human computer’ but did you know that she was not formally educated.
Amazon Prime's latest movie 'Shakuntala Devi' has created a lot of hype among the audience. Everybody knows the famous mathematician as the 'human computer' but did you know that she was not formally educated or didn't even score well at her cognitive tests.
Certainly not right! Well here are some interesting facts that you definitely need to know about the genius Shakuntala Devi.
Watch the trailer of "Shakuntala Devi" the movie here
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Early Childhood
Shakuntala Devi's father was a circus performer and while travelling with her parents she was able to cultivate her calculating skills at the age of 3 by performing card tricks.
By the time Shakuntala Devi was 6 years old, she could already do arithmetic problems in the University of Mysore.
A place in the Guinness Book of World Records
Shakuntala Devi was recognised in the Guinness Book of World Records in 1982 for her long multiplication skill.
At Imperial College on June 18, 1980, Shakuntala Devi was asked to multiply two 13-digit numbers: 7,686,369,774,870 × 2,465,099,745,779.
She got the answer in 28 seconds — 18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730.
Shakuntala Devi's book on Homosexuality
Shakuntala Devi was the first person ever to write a book on homosexuality in India. Her book titled "The World of Homosexuals" argued that all people exhibit different sexual tendencies and orientations at different times and there is nothing called homosexuality or hetero sexuality in the world. She has also authored a number of books on astrology and cooking.
Her skills in calculating calenders
Given any date in the last century, she could instantly say which day of the week that date fell on. For example, if you gave her the date July 31, 1920, she would immediately tell you that it was a Saturday. If the date was stated in the order month, day, year (for example, July-13-1920), her average response time was about 1 second. But when the dates were stated to her in the order year, month, day (for example 1920-July-31), "her answers came about as fast as one could start the stopwatch", the 1988 test at Berkeley found
Shakuntala Devi's dislike for the term 'Human Computer'
Shakuntala Devi was known as the 'Human Computer' but the genius disliked the term very much. According to her, human mind has incomparably much capabilities than the computer and it is not appropriate to compare human mind with computers.
Notably, the first woman mathematician in India, Shakuntala Devi died in Bangalore on 21 April 2013 at the age of 83 due to cardiac and respiratory problems.
Although Shakuntala Devi has passed away, her strong legacy and her outstanding mathematical skills paves way for young woman all across the globe specially in South East Asia to find a role model in such a wonderful woman.
Directed by Anu Menon and starring Vidya Balan and Jisshu Sengupta in lead roles, the film focuses more on Shakuntala Devi's personal life. While it is full of glimpses about her extraordinary calculating abilities, the film dwells very little on the mental processes these abilities were based on.
