Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1901 — GREAT AT FIGURES. [ARTICLE]

GREAT AT FIGURES.

An Indiana Man Who Can Multiply In Sixty-four Way*. Arthur F. Griffith, commonly known as the Lightning Calculator, and conceded to be the greatest mathematician In Indiana, was born on a farm near Milford, this county, on the 13th day of July, 1880. From the time he was able to talk until the present his whole thought has been on the subject of mathematics. When but a small lad he would frequently count the number of potatoes his mother peeled, or the number of ears of corn husked by his father. One day he counted the number of sticks of wood sawed by several men, the total being G,583. When Griffith was 10 years old his parents moved to Milford, and for the next seven years he attended the public schools there. Tlie teachers were unable to teach him anything In the line of mathematics, and found it very difficult to interest him iu anything else; so at the age of 17 his education ceased. The extent nnd diversity of Griffith’s mathematical knowledge was first known to the public about two years ago, aud since that time he has been progressing rapidly in all branches of his favorite study. Somewhat doubting what he had heard of Griffith, Ernest H. Lindley, associate professor of psychology at Indiana University, sent for him in November, 1899. Griffith remained at the university for three months studying algebra and giving exhibitions before the classes. At the end of three months In charge of Professor Lindley he was taken to Yale University at New Haven, Conn., where he dumfounded all by his rapid calculating and the able manner In which he could explain how he could work all problems propounded to him. Griffith now has eight different methods of his own for addition, ten for division, and sixty-four for multiplication. He can take any number betwetgi 070 and 1,000 and raise it to the fifth power in thirty-nine seconds without the use of either pencil or paper, while In working with peueil and paper 300 operations are necessary. Griffith can mentally add three columns at a time, divide any set of figures, multiply any set of figures in from one to forty seconds. nnd extract square aud cube roots in from three to fifteen seconds. He remembers every problem that he works. The hardest test Milch he has yet been given, so he claims, is to staud and see a freight train pass with twenty or thirty ears, nnd then tell the number of each car in order and to what road each belongs.—Warsaw (Ind.) Correspondence Indianapolis News.