Shakuntala Devi - Telegraph The sum, picked at random by the computer department, was 7,686,369,774,870 x 2,465,099,745,779. After 28 seconds she correctly answered 18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730, a feat that earned her a place in the Guinness Book of Records. Jensen set her two problems, the cube root of 61,629,875, and the seventh root of 170,859,375. Shakuntala Devi gave the correct answers - 395 and 15 - even before Jensen's wife could start the stopwatch. The study explored whether Shakuntala Devi's feats derived from some innate ability to manipulate large numbers or from practice. Her reaction times on simple cognitive tasks such as picking the odd man out were unexceptional, and contrasted sharply with her speed at arithmetical calculations. Jensen suggested that she perceived large numbers differently from others. "For a calculating prodigy like Devi, the manipulation of numbers is apparently like a native language, whereas for most of us, arithmetic calculation is at best like the foreign language we learnt at school," he wrote. He believed that some "motivational factor" that drives and sustains "enormous and prolonged interest and practice" might explain her extreme levels of skill. Shakuntala Devi was born on November 4 1929 in Bangalore into an orthodox Brahmin family. Her father, refusing to follow the family priestly tradition, became a circus performer, excelling in trapeze, tightrope, lion taming and human cannonball acts. When she was three, Shakuntala began exhibiting precocious skill with numbers, and by the time she was five, could calculate cube roots. A year later she amazed mathematicians at Mysore University with her ability to solve complex mathematical problems in her head. But she had no conventional schooling, mainly on account of her father's travels with the circus, and even went short of food. She claimed to have joined a convent at the age of 10, but to have been expelled within three months because her parents were unable to pay the fees. While growing up in a run-down area of Bangalore, Shakuntala was able to retain large numbers of digits in her memory. This singular talent came to wider attention when she beat one of the world's fastest computers by 10 seconds in a complicated calculation. "Numbers have life, they're not just symbols on paper," she once said. I cannot transfer my abilities to anyone, but I can think of quicker ways with which to help people develop numerical aptitude. A daughter survives her. Shakuntala Devi, born November 4 1929, died April 20 2013