Shakuntala Devi Essay in English, Shakuntala Devi was a famous personality in India. She was an Indian writer. She was also known as a mathematical genius and a human-computer. She was well-known for making complicated mathematical calculations in her mind. She instantly came out with the results without any trouble. Born on 4 November 1929, she belonged to a family in southern India.
She was the daughter of a circus performer. This is why she began displaying her skills at an early age. Her father recognized her in the form of a child prodigy. This is why he started taking her on roadshows, where she showed her ability to calculate easily.
Shakuntala Devi Essay in English
Essay On Shakuntala Devi
There are many amazing things about Shakuntala Devi. One of them is that she did not get any formal education because of the poor financial condition of her family. But still, she had the most brilliant mind and she used it in the calculation of mathematics.
Due to her phenomenal ability to do the most complex mathematical calculations with no use of technology or any other thing, she became popular. Eventually, she turned out to be a global phenomenon.
A professor of psychology, Arthur Jensen, at the University of California, Berkeley, examined and studied her abilities. This is why he decided to publish his findings of Shakuntala Devi in the academic journal named Intelligence.
It was her extraordinary abilities, which also let her earn a place in the 1982 edition of ‘The Guinness Book of World Records.’ Another amazing thing about Shakuntala Devi is that she had also written many children’s books and worked on puzzles, mathematics, and astrology.
Also Read: Kamarajar Essay in English
Her childhood and early life
Her family was an orthodox family and a Kannada-based Brahmin family. Her father rebelled against his traditional family to follow this unconventional profession rather than becoming an astrologer or priest as his forefathers had been.
Her father was a traveling magician. Even, her father did not have the funds to let her educate. As per an anecdote, Shakuntala Devi began playing card games with her father when she was just 3 years. It was her father, who understood that this little girl got success in all the games against him.
Every day, she defeated her father in games, but her father suspected her of cheating. This is why he closely studied her when she used to play. He realized that she was capable of memorizing all the card numbers along with their sequence as the game proceeded in the initial rounds. In the next rounds, she used this knowledge to win the game.
Once he found that his daughter had a special ability as a gift from God, he decided to take her on tours while traveling. In shows, Shakuntala Devi was efficient to show her calculation ability. It led her to gain attention in the world and was capable of earning sufficient money for her father.
Slowly and slowly, she got popular in the whole world because of her brilliant ability. This is why she began appearing at universities located in the southern part of India. When she was 6 years old, she displayed her abilities to the faculty of the University of Mysore.
She also visited other universities, where she displayed her abilities such as the Annamalai University, Osmania University, and the varsities of Visakhapatnam and Hyderabad.
Later years
As time passed on, Shakuntala Devi became a world-popular personality. Her name started to recall everywhere in the world. In 1944, she moved to London with her father. She traveled all over the world and showed her skills in many countries like Hong King, the USA, Japan, Canada, Italy, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Spain, France, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
In 1955, Shakuntala Devi appeared on a BBC show, where she solved a complex mathematical problem given by the host Leslie Mitchell. She solved this problem in just a few seconds. However, she was told that she gave an incorrect answer, which was different from what the host with his team had calculated.
Then, the host rechecked the answer and came to know about the answer given by Shakuntala Devi was current and the original answer was not right. This is how the news spread like a fire all over the world. This way, she got the title of the ‘Human-Computer.’
Shakuntala Devi was often invited by a number of educational centers. She went to the Southern Methodist University located in the United States of America in 1977. At that time, she was asked to perform a calculation for the 23rd root of a 201-digit number.
She took just 50 seconds to solve this mathematical problem. The time taken by a professor to write down the problem on the board was 4 minutes and a Univac computer took more than a minute to give this answer. But she just took a few minutes, everyone was amazed at her.
Contribution Of Shakuntala Devi
Along with being a mathematician, Shakuntala Devi was also a brilliant and successful astrologer. She authored a lot of books on the subject. Additionally, Shakuntala Devi also wrote texts on mathematics for puzzles and children.
‘The World of Homosexuals’ was the most significant book written by Shakuntala Devi in 1977, which is the first complete study of homosexuality in India. She got the inspiration to write this book from her husband as she realized that he was a homosexual. This is the reason why she researched a lot and worked closely on homosexuality.
Shakuntala Devi began the Shakuntala Devi Education Foundation Public Trust. The motive of this trust is to give quality education to kids who come from underprivileged backgrounds. It was she, who made hard efforts to spread global awareness about the contribution of India towards the subject of mathematics.
In 1960, Shakuntala Devi was awarded at the University of Philippines with the title of ‘The Most Distinguished Woman of the Year.’ she also received an award named ‘Ramanujan Mathematical Genius’ in Washington D.C in 1988. She died on 21 April 2013. Shakuntala Devi was a popular figure in Indian history and was honored with a Google Doodle.
This is the contribution of indian mathematician shakuntala devi, from this entire article, we cover information about shakuntala devi essay in english in 200 words. If found anything missing let us know by commenting below. For more info kindly visit us at wikiliv.com