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Shakuntala Devi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Not to be confused with Sakuntla Devi.
This article is about the writer. For the mythological character, see Shakuntala
.
Shakuntala Devi
Shakuntala Devi.jpg
Born 4 November 1929
Bengaluru, India
Died 21 April 2013 (aged 83)
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Nationality Indian
Other names Human computer
Occupation Social worker
Shakuntala Devi (Kannada: ??????? ????; 4 November 1929 21 April 2013) was an In
dian writer and mental calculator, popularly known as the "human computer".[1][2
][3][4][5] A child prodigy, her talent earned her a place in the 1982 edition of
The Guinness Book of World Records.[1][2][3]
As a writer, Devi wrote a number of books, including novels as well as texts abo
ut mathematics, puzzles, and astrology. She wrote the book, "The World of Homose
xuals", which is considered the first study of homosexuality in India. She treat
ed homosexuality in an understanding light and is considered a pioneer in the fi
eld.
Contents
1 Life and career
1.1 Early life
1.2 Mental calculation
1.3 Book on homosexuality
1.4 Personal life
2 Death and legacy
3 Works
4 See also
5 References
6 External links
Life and career
Early life
Shakuntala Devi was born in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India,[2][3] to an orthodox Ka
nnada Brahmin family.[6] Her father rebelled against becoming a temple priest[3]
[7] and instead joined a circus where he worked as a trapeze artist, lion tamer,
tightrope walker and magician.[1][2][5][8] He discovered his daughter's ability
to memorise numbers while teaching her a card trick when she was about three ye
ars old.[1][2][5] Her father left the circus and took her on road shows that dis
played her ability at calculation.[2] She did this without any formal education.
[1][3] At the age of six, she demonstrated her arithmetic abilities at the Unive
rsity of Mysore.[2][3]
In 1944, Devi moved to London with her father.[9]
Mental calculation
Devi travelled the world demonstrating her arithmetic talents, including a tour
of Europe in 1950 and a performance in New York City in 1976.[2] In 1988, she tr
avelled to the US to have her abilities studied by Arthur Jensen, a professor of
psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Jensen tested her perform
ance of several tasks, including the calculation of large numbers. Examples of t
he problems presented to Devi included calculating the cube root of 61,629,875 a
nd the seventh root of 170,859,375.[3][4] Jensen reported that Devi provided the
solution to the above mentioned problems (395 and 15, respectively) before Jens
en could copy them down in his notebook.[3][4] Jensen published his findings in
the academic journal Intelligence in 1990.[3][4]
In 1977, at Southern Methodist University, she gave the 23rd root of a 201-digit
number in 50 seconds.[1][4] Her answer 546,372,891 was confirmed by calculations do
ne at the US Bureau of Standards by the UNIVAC 1101 computer, for which a specia
l program had to be written to perform such a large calculation.[10]
On 18 June 1980, she demonstrated the multiplication of two 13-digit numbers 7,686
,369,774,870 2,465,099,745,779 picked at random by the Computer Department of Impe
rial College London. She correctly answered 18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730 i
n 28 seconds.[2][3] This event was recorded in the 1982 Guinness Book of Records
.[2][3] Writer Steven Smith said, "the result is so far superior to anything pre
viously reported that it can only be described as unbelievable".[10]
Devi explained many of the methods she used to do mental calculations in her boo
k 'Figuring: The Joy of Numbers', that is still in print. See the Works section
below.
Book on homosexuality
In 1977, she wrote The World of Homosexuals, the first[11] study of homosexualit
y in India.[12] In the documentary For Straights Only, she said that her interes
t in the topic came out of her marriage to a homosexual man and her desire to lo
ok at homosexuality more closely to understand it.[13]
The book, considered "pioneering",[14] features interviews with two young Indian
homosexual men, a male couple in Canada seeking legal marriage, a temple priest
who explains his views on homosexuality, and a review of the existing literatur
e on homosexuality.[15] It ends with a call for decriminalization of homosexuali
ty, and "full and complete acceptance not tolerance and sympathy".[14] The book, h
owever, went mostly unnoticed at that time.[16]
Personal life
She returned to India in the mid-1960s and married Paritosh Banerji, an officer
of the Indian Administrative Service from Kolkata.[9] They were divorced in 1979
.[9] In 1980, she contested in the Lok Sabha elections as an independent, from B
ombay South and from Medak in Telengana.[17] In Medak she stood against Indira G
andhi, saying she wanted to "defend the people of Medak from being fooled by Mrs
. Gandhi";[18] she stood ninth, with 6514 votes (1.47% of the votes).[19] Devi r
eturned to Bengaluru in the early 1980s.[9]
In addition to her work as a mental calculator, Devi was an astrologer and an au
thor of several books, including cookbooks and novels.[2][5][8]
Death and legacy
In April 2013, Devi was admitted to a hospital in Bengaluru with respiratory pro
blems.[1] Over the following two weeks she suffered from complications of the he
art and kidneys.[1][2] She died in the hospital on 21 April 2013.[1][2] She was
83 years old then.[2][3] She is survived by her daughter, Anupama Banerji.[3][8]
On 4 November 2013, Devi was honoured with a Google Doodle for what would have b
een her 84th birthday (https://www.google.com/doodles/shakuntala-devis-84th-birt
hday).[20]
Works
Some of her books are:
Astrology for You (New Delhi: Orient, 2005). ISBN 978-81-222-0067-6
Book of Numbers (New Delhi: Orient, 2006). ISBN 978-81-222-0006-5
Figuring: The Joy of Numbers (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), ISBN 978-0-06-0
11069-7, OCLC 4228589
In the Wonderland of Numbers (New Delhi: Orient, 2006). ISBN 978-81-222-0399
-8
Mathability: Awaken the Math Genius in Your Child (New Delhi: Orient, 2005).
ISBN 978-81-222-0316-5
More Puzzles to Puzzle You (New Delhi: Orient, 2006). ISBN 978-81-222-0048-5
Perfect Murder (New Delhi: Orient, 1976), OCLC 3432320
Puzzles to Puzzle You (New Delhi: Orient, 2005). ISBN 978-81-222-0014-0
Super Memory: It Can Be Yours (New Delhi: Orient, 2011). ISBN 978-81-222-050
7-7; (Sydney: New Holland, 2012). ISBN 978-1-74257-240-6, OCLC 781171515
The World of Homosexuals (Vikas Publishing House, 1977), ISBN 978-0706904789
[12][21]
See also
Mnemonist
References
"Shakuntala Devi strove to simplify maths for students". The Hindu. 21 April 201
3. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
Pandya, Haresh (21 April 2013). "Shakuntala Devi, 'Human Computer' Who Bested th
e Machines, Dies at 83". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
"Obituary: Shakuntala Devi". The Telegraph. 22 April 2013. Retrieved 9 July 2013
.
Jensen, Arthur R. (July September 1990). "Speed of information processing in a cal
culating prodigy". Intelligence. University of California, Berkeley, United Stat
es. 14 (3): 259 274. doi:10.1016/0160-2896(90)90019-P. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
"Obituary: India's 'human computer' Shakuntala Devi". BBC News. 22 April 2013. R
etrieved 9 July 2013.
"Science: Numbers Game". Time. 14 July 1952. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
IBTimes Staff Reporter (22 April 2013). "Math Genius and Guinness Record Holder
Shakuntala Devi Passes Away at Age 83". International Business Times. Retrieved
23 July 2013.
Aditi Mishra; Siddarth Kumar Jain (22 April 2013). "She made learning maths as t
hrilling as magic". The Bangalore Mirror. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
"India's math wizard, Shakuntala Devi". Yahoo! India News. 22 April 2013. Retrie
ved 9 July 2013.
Smith, Steven Bradley (1983). The Great Mental Calculators: The Psychology, Meth
ods, and Lives of Calculating Prodigies, Past and Present. Columbia University P
ress. ISBN 0231056400.
Subir K Kole (11 July 2007). "Globalizing queer? AIDS, homophobia and the politi
cs of sexual identity in India". Globalization and Health. 3: 8. doi:10.1186/174
4-8603-3-8. PMC 2018684?Freely accessible. PMID 17623106: "The first academic bo
ok on Indian homosexuals appeared in 1977 (The World of Homosexuals) written by
Shakuntala Devi, the mathematics wiz kid who was internationally known as the hu
man computer. This book treated homosexuality in a positive light and reviewed t
he socio-cultural and legal situation of homosexuality in India and contrasted t
hat with the gay liberation movement then taking place in the USA."
Shakuntala Devi (1977). The World of Homosexuals. Vikas Publishing House. ISBN 9
780706904789
R.I.P. Shakuntala Devi, math-evangelist and ally of the queer community
Ruth Vanita; Saleem Kidwai, eds. (2008). Same-Sex Love in India: A Literary Hist
ory. Penguin UK. ISBN 9788184759693.
Sherry Joseph (2005), Social Work Practice and Men Who Have Sex With Men, p. 64,
ISBN 9780761933526
Subhash Chandra (March 2008). "Review of "The Construction of Queer Culture in I
ndia: Pioneers and Landmarks"". Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and
the Pacific (16):
For Garcia-Arroyo the beginning of the debate on homosexuality in the twenti
eth century is made with Shakuntala Devi's book The World of Homosexuals publish
ed in 1977. [...] Shakuntala Devi's (the famous mathematician) [sic] book appear
ed. This book went almost unnoticed, and did not contribute to queer discourse o
r movement. [...] The reason for this book not making its mark was because Shaku
ntala Devi was famous for her mathematical wizardry and nothing of substantial i
mport in the field of homosexuality was expected from her. Another factor for th
e indifference meted out to the book could perhaps be a calculated silence becau
se the cultural situation in India was inhospitable for an open and elaborate di
scussion on this issue.
The Election Archives, Volumes 65 70, Shiv Lal, 1982, pp. 111, 64, "Two other prom
inent independents were film comedian I. S. Johar and the mathematician, Mrs Sha
kuntala Devi. I. S. Johar contested from Bombay south and New Delhi and Mrs Shak
untala Devi from Bombay south and Medak in Andhra Pradesh."
"Bombay's Women", Himmat Volume 16 Part 1, 1979, p. 10, ""An amusing sidelight o
f the contest in Bombay is also provided by a woman the mathematical genius Shak
untala Devi, who is standing as an independent from Bombay South. Mrs. Devi has
also filed her nomination from Medak in Andhra Pradesh, where she is fighting Mr
s Indira Gandhi. Despite her mathematical mind, Mrs. Devi, I am afraid, just doe
s not add up. From her 17th floor Cuffe Parade flat she claims that she is "100
per cent" sure that she will win from both constituencies. She is standing as an
independent because "parties don't want intelligent people in the party". To he
r being Prime Minister or President "is something like being a housekeeper". By
entering the fray she wants to "deglamourise" politics. Politics should not be a
full-time affair, she feels, and more like her should enter. Incidentally, she
is known to have approached the Congress (I) for a ticket because, as she hersel
f admits, she "had the impression that Mrs Gandhi alone would fight for democrac
y in the country". She changed her mind suddenly, she says, when Sanjay Gandhi w
as given a ticket to stand from Amethi in UP; "I realised that Mrs. Gandhi had f
ooled me the way she had so many people. I saw all sycophants surrounding her."
So now Mrs. Devi wants to "defend the people of Medak from being fooled by Mrs.
Gandhi"."
Agarala Easwara Reddi (1985), Lok Sabha Elections, 1977 & 1980, in Andhra Prades
h, Tamil Nadu Academy of Political Science, p. 175, "9. Smt. Shakuntala Devi (In
d) (the well known mathematical prodigy) 6514 1.47 / 10. Sardar Jagat Singh (Ind
) 1430 0.32"
TNN (4 November 2013) "Shakuntala Devi's 84th birthday celebrated with a doodle"
. The Times of India. Retrieved on 4 November 2013.
Jeffrey S. Siker (2006). Homosexuality and Religion. Greenwood Publishing Gr
oup. p. 127. ISBN 9780313330889: "In her 1977 book, mathematician Shakuntala Dev
i interviewed..."
External links
Chips no match to grey cells: Shakuntala Devi Times of India
Interview with Know Your Star
Authority control
WorldCat Identities VIAF: 20952735 LCCN: n79007262 NDL: 00437791
Categories:
1929 births2013 deathsIndian astrologersMental calculatorsLGBT rights activi
sts from IndiaIndian women science writersIndian technology writersIndian women
mathematicians20th-century Indian women scientistsWriters from BangaloreScientis
ts from BangaloreIndian women social workers20th-century Indian women writers20t
h-century Indian mathematicians20th-century Indian educatorsWomen writers from K
arnatakaWomen scientists from Karnataka20th-century Indian non-fiction writersIn
dian popular science writers
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