Shakuntala Devi, quite aptly named as ‘Human Computer’ died on 21 April 2013 in Bangalore, India due to heart and kidney problems.

If you never heard about her, she was a mathematical genius who could compute complex equation and perform complex calculations, orally. She also hold the Guinness World Record holder for calculating two 13-digit numbers in 28 seconds.

Shakuntala Devi was born on November 4, 1929. Her father, who worked in a circus, noticed her exceptional mathematical skills when she was three years old. She started performing with her father to amaze the audience with her brilliant memory with the card tricks. As she grew up, her fame grew with her and in some time it reached beyond the boundaries of India.

In 1977, she beat a computer in calculating the cube root of 188,132,517. If you think it was nothing much impressive, she calculated 23rd root of 201 digit number in 50 seconds. It took 70 seconds for a UNIVAC 1108 computer to do the same computation. Of course todays computers, even smart phones, can do this calculation much faster but it is still amazing, isn’t it?

In 1980, at Computer Department of Imperial College, London, she calculated the product of two random picked numbers, 7,686,369,774,870 and 2,465,099,745,779 in 28 seconds and thus got her name registered in Guinness Book of World Record.

She had authored several books consisting mathematical puzzles to encourage children towards mathematics. I still have her Puzzles To Puzzle You book in my collection. It’s a pity that Indian schools never tried to implement her techniques (or Vedic Mathematics)  in the education system.