Shakuntala Devi: The 'Human Computer' Who Outpaced Machines

Priya Khaitan
Jul 30
2 min read

Updated: Aug 3

Overview

Shakuntala Devi (1929–2013), the "Human Computer," was an Indian mental calculator with virtually no formal education who beat computers at their own game, earning a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for mentally multiplying two 13-digit numbers faster than a machine could.

Timeline

1929 — Born 4 November in Bangalore to an orthodox Brahmin family
c. 1932 — Her calculating ability is discovered at age three, when she began winning card games against her father by memorizing sequences
1950 — Appears on BBC television performing mental calculations
1977 — Extracts the 23rd root of a 201-digit number in 50 seconds at Southern Methodist University, beating a UNIVAC computer's time of 62 seconds
18 June 1980 — Correctly multiplies two randomly generated 13-digit numbers in 28 seconds at Imperial College London
1982 — Feat is recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records
1988 — Studied by psychology professor Arthur Jensen at UC Berkeley, who could not fully explain her abilities
2013 — Dies 21 April in Bangalore, aged 83, of respiratory and cardiac problems
2020 — Guinness World Records issues her certificate posthumously on 30 July, 40 years after her actual feat

Early Life

Raised in an orthodox Brahmin family whose father defied tradition by joining the circus as a trapeze artist and lion tamer, Shakuntala received virtually no formal schooling. Her calculating gift was discovered when she began beating her father at cards at age three by memorizing the sequence of numbers.

Achievements

Multiplied two 13-digit numbers in 28 seconds at Imperial College London in 1980, earning a Guinness World Record
Extracted the 23rd root of a 201-digit number in 50 seconds, beating a UNIVAC computer's time
Toured the world demonstrating mental calculation on radio, television, and stage for decades
Authored multiple books on mathematics and puzzles

Challenges

With no formal mathematical education, Devi's abilities were sometimes met with skepticism from scientists trying to explain them; even UC Berkeley psychologist Arthur Jensen, who studied her directly in 1988, could offer no full explanation for her speed. Her Guinness World Record certificate, remarkably, wasn't formally issued until 2020 — seven years after her death, and 40 years after the feat itself.

Legacy

Shakuntala Devi remains one of the most widely cited examples of human mental calculation ability, her feats still referenced in discussions of cognition and mathematical prodigy. The Shakuntala Devi Educational Foundation Public Trust continues work in her name.

"She could give you the cube root of 188,132,517 — or almost any other number — in the time it took to ask the question." — The New York Times, 1976

Sources

Wikipedia: Shakuntala Devi; The Boston Globe obituary; Vedic Math School.

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