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2007-12-12 06:48:10
Tue Dec 11, 12:21 PM ET
LONDON (AFP) - The world's fastest human calculator on Tuesday broke his own
record for working out a 200-digit number using nothing but brain power to
produce the answer in just over 70 seconds.
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Alexis Lemaire, a 27-year-old Frenchman, correctly calculated the 13th root of
a random 200-digit number from a possible 393 trillion answers.
The so-called 'mathlete' produced the answer of 2,407,899,893,032,210 in 70.2
seconds, beating his previous record of 72.4 seconds, at London's Science
Museum.
A computer was used to produce a random 200-digit number before he sat down to
calculate the answer in his head.
The museum's curator of mathematics, Jane Wess, said: "He sat down and it was
all very quiet -- and all of a sudden he amazingly just cracked it.
"I believe that it is the highest sum calculated mentally.
"He seems to have a large memory and he's made this his life's ambition. It's
quite remarkable to see it happen. A very small number of people have this
extraordinary ability; nowadays there is only a handful."
Lemaire, who attends the University of Reims in northern France, began
demonstrating his prowess by finding the 13th root of a random 100-digit number
but gave up trying to improve his performance when he calculated an answer in
under four seconds in 2004.
Like an athlete, he trains his brain daily for the far harder task of finding
the 13th root of 200-digit numbers.