THE CALCULATING BOY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1252, 30 May 1914, Page 4

THE CALCULATING BOY.

WONDERFUL MENTAL

FEATS,

An interesting facsimile has been published of the pamphlet issued in 1820, in which are recorded the more remarkable examples of the problems solved by George Bidder, the calculating boy of Moretonhampstead. It has been said that these calculating boys, ot whom Bidder is the most lamous, do not think of numbers in the same way as ordinary people. Some ot them, at any rate, when given a number see a mental picture of it as a cube divided into many other cubes, and deal with it in their minds much as in the external world one might deal with bricks. Naturally, the cube perceived is not always perfect, for that depends on whether the number given will yield an exact cube toot, but the cube idea is said to be always present, and the ooy perceives it as perfect or imperfect as the case may be.

One sees at once that if it were possible to think of a number under this form, instead of, as most of us do, merely in the actual figures, it would be au immense advantage in dealing with it; and this, perhaps is one of the secrets of the extrordinary which George Bidder possessed in such superabundent measure. However the results were attained they appear almost miraculous. As a calculating boy George Bidder was in his prime between G Lges of 12 and 13. Fur instance, he was asked if the national debt is /^79 1 .9 01 i37 2 * atr ‘ suppose London to contain one billion and forty-five persons, how many glasses of gin vvil furnish each person at 2#d each in the above debt ? It will be noticed that besides its arithmetical difficulty the question is, probably intentionally, obscure in form. _ Y ! this amazing child in one minute returned the correct answer, which is 69,115 glasses each. In three minutes he gave the correct reply to the question : “Suppose the distance of Sinus, the Dog Star, be 32 billions of miles from the earth ; how many years, davs, hours and minutes would a canuon ball be travelling from Sirius to the earth, at the rate of 20 miles a minute; the length of the year being 363 days oL- urs ?” Few people, if given pencil and paper, could work this sum out in less than a quarter of an hour.