An Age of Magic

Could you do this on your fingers?.

Are you a whizz at mathematics?.  How about this; you have to work out the answer to a mathematical problem and the correct answer is: 2, 407, 899, 893, o32, 210…whatever the question is it just has to be a whopper. And not only that, but you have to work it out without the help of a calculator, a mechanical one that is, you have to use the ‘calculator’ that god gave you.

A Frenchman, Alexis Lemaire, had to work out the 13th root of a computer generated 200-digit number; to make it even easier it had a possibility of 393 TRILLION answers. Whilst many of us, myself included at times, still use the ten finger abacus to add up, this guy didn’t even need a paper and pencil. He used his brain and would you believe he solved the problem in 70.2 seconds later!. I wouldn’t have solved it 70 YEARS later!.

Those of us who use a crossword to stretch the brain matter and keep it active might be interested to know that guys like Mr Lemaire exercise their brains by working out problems using the 13th root. Highly impressive. But I don’t think I’ll bother challenging him to a duel.

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