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Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2010)Mental calculators are people with a prodigious ability in some area of mental calculation, such as multiplying large numbers or factoring large numbers. Some rare 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 scientists, 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.
The world's best mental calculators are invited every two years to compete for the Mental Calculation World Cup. On July 2nd, 2008, Alberto Coto Garcia of Spain succeeded Robert Fountain of Great Britain as world champion.
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).
Contents
[hide][edit] Mental calculators from history
- Aitken, Alexander Craig, [1]
- Bidder, George Parker
- Shakuntala Devi
- Buxton, Jedediah,
- Colburn, Zerah
- Dase, Johann Zacharias
- Deshong, Peter M.
- Diamandi, Pericles
- Eberstark, Hans
- Chintapalli
- Euler, Leonhard
- Finkelstein, Salo
- Flansburg, Scott
- Fuller, Thomas
- Gauss, Carl Frederich
- Gamm, Rüdiger
- Griffith, Arthur F.
- Inaudi, Jacques
- Klein, Wim (a.k.a. Willem Klein) [2]
- Willis Dysart (a.k.a. Willie the Wizard)
- van Koningsveld, Jan
- Dubrulle, Emmanuël
- McCartney, Daniel
- von Neumann, John
- Ruckle, Gottfried
- Safford, Truman Henry
- Sharma, Lakkoju Sanjeevaraya
- Tammet, Daniel
- Sidis, William James
- Ramanujan, Srinivasa
- Coto, Alberto
[edit] 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. Paul Atreides was originally trained as one without his knowledge.
In Roald Dahl's novel, "Matilda", the lead character is portrayed having exceptional mathematical skills as she computes her dad's profit without the need for paper computations.
Andrew Jackson "Slipstick" Libby is a calculating prodigy in Robert A. Heinlein's story Methuselah's Children.
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.
In the movie Little Man Tate, Fred Tate in the audience blurts out the answer during a mental calculation contest.
In the sci-fi thriller Cube, one of the prisoners, Kazan, appears to be mentally disabled but is revealed later in the film to be an autistic savant, who is able to calculate prime factors in his head.
In the 2006 film Stranger than Fiction, the main character, Harold Crick, is able to perform rapid arithmetic at the request of his co-workers.
[edit] Champion Mental Calculators
Every two years the world's best mental calculators are invited to participate in The Mental Calculation World Cup, an international competition that attempts 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 final placings from each of the world cups that have been staged to date are shown below.
[edit] First Mental Calculation World Cup (Annaberg-Buchholz, 2004)
1 2 3 [edit] Second Mental Calculation World Cup (Gießen, 2006)
1 2 3 [edit] Third Mental Calculation World Cup (Leipzig, 2008)
1 2 3 [edit] Fourth Mental Calculation World Cup (Magdeburg, 2010)
1 2 3
The Mind Sports Olympiad has staged an annual world championships since 1997.
[edit] MSO mental calculation gold medal winners
1997 Karl Galle
1998 Robert Fountain
1999 2000 Robert Fountain
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 /
2009 The Mind Sports Organisation recognises three International Grandmasters of Mental Calculation: Robert Fountain (1999), George Lane (2001) and Gert Mittring (2005), and one International Master, Andy Robertshaw (2008).
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Mental Calculation World Cup site
- Prodigy Calculators by Viktor Pekelis
- Willem Klein
- Thought and machine processes
- Tricks and techniques
- 13throot.com - Alexis Lemaire website about mental calculation of 13th roots
- The "Great" Mental Calculators
- Lightning Calculators is a three-part essay that discusses these individuals, their methods, and the media coverage of them.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_calculator"Hidden categories: Articles lacking sources from June 2010 | All articles lacking sources
I was checking out my traffic stats and the words "mental calculation world cup" seemed to get to some pages of one of my sites. Just thought I'd check it out.
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