Who is Shakuntala Devi: Amazon Prime is going to premiere the highly anticipated biographical drama Shakuntala Devi, featuring Vidya Balan in the lead role on July 31, 2020. The online video streaming app has recently released the official trailer of the movie on July 15, 2020. The movie is based on the life of world-renowned mathematics genius Shakuntala Devi.
Who is Shakuntala Devi?
Since the time when the movie was announced until the time when the trailer is released, several people are wondering and are eager to know about her. Here we have brought to you, everything that you need to know about the human-computer.
Shakuntala Devi was born on November 4, 1929, in a Hindu Brahmin family in Bangalore. At the age of 3, her father realized her ability to remember the numbers and gave up his job at a circus company to give roadshows projecting the talent of his daughter in calculating. She proved her arithmetic capabilities at the age of 6 at the University of Mysore without any formal education.
Later in 1944, she moved to London along with her father. She traveled across the globe to showcase her talents. Her passion to expand the human capacity made her develop the concept known as ‘Mind Dynamics’.
She traveled to the US in 1988 so that her abilities can be studied by the professor of psychology Arthur Jensen at the University of California, Berkeley. According to the report of Jensen, she easily solved problems like calculating the cube root of 61,629,875 and the seventh root of 170,859,375 before he could copy the answer in his notebook.
Shakuntala Devi Biography
Earlier on 18 June 1980, she gave the correct solution to the multiplication of two random 13 digit numbers (7,686,369,774,870 × 2,465,099,745,779) in 28 seconds, which earned her a place in 1982 The Guinness Book Of World Records. It was said that she outperformed the fastest computers of her time.
Apart from being a mathematical wizard, Shakuntala Devi was also an Indian writer. Having a soft corner for the homosexuals and wrote a book titled The World of Homosexuals, which is the first-ever book on homosexuality in India. Apart from this, she also wrote several books on mathematics, puzzles, astrology, and cooking. Many of her method of calculations have been explained by her in her book titled Figuring: The Joy of Numbers, which is still in print.
Shakuntala Devi Wiki, Career, & Talent
Acknowledging her talents, she was titled as ‘Human Computer’ after she showcased her talents in the BBC channel hosted by Leslie Mitchell on October 5, 1950. However, she never liked it as according to her, human mind has much more capabilities than what a computer has and hence the comparison is inappropriate.
The first Indian Woman Mathematician breathed her last in Bangalore on 21 April 2013 at the age of 83 due to cardiac and respiratory problems.
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