The world 'living computer' dies

Shakuntala Devi, Indian math genius, who was dubbed the "living computer" died at the age of 83.

Ms. Shakuntala Devi died on Sunday at the hospital in Bangalore, after suffering from heart and respiratory problems.

Devi is a mathematical genius and is considered to be the smartest woman in the world. In 1977, at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, USA, she declared the 23th root of a 201-digit number only 50 seconds, faster than the computer that time was 12 seconds.

Ms. Shakuntala Devi.

In 1980, while performing at the London University of Experimental, England, she performed two 13-digit numbers in 28 seconds. Two numbers are 7,686,369,774,870 x 2,465,099,745,779; Twenty-eight seconds later, she gave the correct answer, 18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730.

With the superhuman mentality, Mrs. Devi is enrolled in Guinness World Records.

An article in the New York Times once wrote: "If you take any day in the last century, Mrs. Devi will tell you exactly what days it is, which week is in just a few seconds."

Shakuntala Devi was born in Bangalore on November 4, 1929, in the family without much money. Her father is an acrobatic artist working in a circus. He discovered Devi's mathematical prodigy when he sat playing cards with his 3-year-old daughter, but he kept losing. The daughter wins him because of her ability to memorize all cards.

At the age of 5, Devi became an "expert" when solving most mathematical problems.

Discovering the talent of her daughter, her parents tried to let her go to school but they couldn't afford it, so she had to drop out of school and use her "rich" ability to perform money on the street at 6 year old.

"I became the only pillar of the family and that responsibility was not small for a child , " the New York Times quoted her as saying when she was alive.

BBC quoted Devi when talking about his ability: "It's a gift from God, because no one in my family has a knack for math."

Devi traveled around India and Africa to encourage children to study mathematics.