Shakuntala Devi Biography 
Shakuntala Devi was one of the prominent mathematicians of present times. She is better known as "Human Computer". Her talents as a child prodigy and mental calculator placed her name in 1982th edition of The Guinness Book of World Records. In 1977 she competed with a computer in USA to find the cube root of 188138517. She won it over the computer. Same year, she calculated 23rd root of a 201-digit number within 50 seconds at Southern Methodist University. Later too, she has competed with super computers and won ‘mathematical’ games, thus knowing all over India as the ‘Fastest Indian human computer’. The demonstration of multiplication of two randomly picked 13-digit numbers in 28 seconds on June 18, 1980 placed her name in ‘The Guinness Book of World Records’.
Many of her puzzle books on mathematics are loved by mathematics’ lovers and used as reference for preparing competitive exams as well. Puzzles to Puzzle You, More Puzzles to Puzzle You, Book of Numbers, Mathability: Awaken the Math Genius in Your Child, Super Memory: It Can Be Yours, Figuring: The Joy of Numbers and In the Wonderland of Numbers are a few of them. She is a well known astrologist and her book on astrology is ‘Astrology for You’ published in 2005.
Shakuntala devi was born on November 4, 1929 in Bangalore. He was a circus artist. It was her father who discovered her ability to memorize numbers. She was only 3 years old then. After that incident, he left circus and took young Shakuntala on road shows that displayed her ability at number crunching. She did it without any formal education. By age six she demonstrated her mathematical abilities at the University of Mysore.
In 1944 Shakuntala moved to London with her father. She later returned in mid-1960’s and got married. But later the couple got divorced in 1979. She travelled worldwide demonstrating her memorizing and calculating talents. Apart from being a good mathematician, she was a good astrologer also. She died on April 21, 2013, aged 83.
Published: N/A
Updated: September 29, 2017
