When I was growing up, I read books about people who had incredible gifts of memory or number crunching. It was so fascinating, but it never seemed attainable - it was like being some kind of superhero. It seemed you were either born with the ability or not. Most of us are familiar with the impressive abilities of "mega savant",
Kim Peek, who was the inspiration for Dustin Hoffman's character Raymond Babbitt in
Rain Man
. Are we all capable of these incredible feats of mental gymnastics? While I definitely do believe that these things are gifts, there are some skills that can be learned and mastered which can help us with memory or math(s).
On July 30, 2007 I was honored to meet
Mr Scott Flansburg - "The Human Calculator". (Scott could have mentally calculated that it was a Monday) I had seen him before on television promoting his human calculator learning materials. He was on tour doing a bottled water promotion and was in Jacksonville for the day. For a few hours he was at the Jacksonville Landing - which was within walking distance from where I worked. I walked over and quickly found him under a canopy; free cold bottled water was available and I took a drink and cooled off and listened while Scott asked the woman in front of me what was her date of birth - month, day, year. After she told him, he quickly told her what day of the week she was born on. I told him mine and - zing! - he said that I was born on a "Sunday" - absolutely correct! I knew that there was a formula for determining the day of the week from the month, day and year. When I was a kid, I collected a few math books and some slide rules. I especially liked the books that had math tricks or shortcuts in them. In one book, I remember coming across this formula and calculated the day of the week just as Scott had done. However, it took me a few minutes and I had a pencil and paper.
Scott calculated it in about 3 seconds!
He is truly blessed with a wonderful gift; I was totally fascinated with how lightning fast he could calculate. It was awesome to meet a real life version of "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes"! He took the time to show a group of us some of the shortcuts he uses to add columns of numbers (from left to right, instead of the way I was taught, beginning in the units column and working left), multiply two digits numbers, etc. He is a great teacher and loves to help make math fun for young and old. I wish my wife & sons had been there. Later, I showed them what I remembered - it was not as impressive. I was so fascinated that I forgot to ask him for his autograph!
Where to begin?
The first book I recall reading on the subject was
The Trachtenberg Speed System of Basic Mathematics by Jakow Trachtenberg and Ann Cutler. I had the paperback version. Of course when I say that I had read the book, this really means that I took pencil and paper and followed along by attempting the calculations myself. I had already been exposed to the "new math" and I could see how many of the techniques were based on some of the techniques that I had learned in algebra. This is a good book. However, it is not necessarily "user friendly" or fun.
In addition to the fantastic materials available by
Scott Flansburg , you may also want to take a look at the following two books by Mr. Bill Handley:
Speed Mathematics: Secret Skills for Quick Calculation
Speed Math for Kids: The Fast, Fun Way To Do Basic Calculations
Also, Edward H. Julius has some very good books on
Rapid Math Tricks, too!
There is much more information available! Just search the internet and specific sites (like YouTube) using the key words: "Finger Math", "Chisenbop" or "Chisanbop".
by Edwin M. Lieberthal