Newspaper Accounts of Mental Math Marvels

The credibility of claims that mathematical calculation comes from brains is inversely proportional to the speed and capacity and reliability at which things can be calculated. There are numerous signal slowing factors in the brain, such as the relatively slow speed of dendrites, and the cumulative effect of synaptic delays in which signals have to travel over relatively slow chemical synapses (by far the most common type of synapse in the brain). As explained in my post here, such physical factors should cause brain signals to move at a typical speed very many times slower than the often cited figure of 100 meters per second: a sluggish "snail's pace" speed of only about a centimeter per second (about half an inch per second).  Ordinary everyday evidence of very fast and accurate math calculation by unaided humans is therefore evidence against claims that unaided human math calculation occurs because of brain activity, particularly because the brain is totally lacking in the things humans add to constructed objects to allow fast recall (things such as sorting and addressing and indexes). Chemical synapses in the brain do not even reliably transmit signals. Scientific papers say that each time a signal is transmitted across a chemical synapse, it is transmitted with a reliability of 50% or less.  (A paper states, "Several recent studies have documented the unreliability of central nervous system synapses: typically, a postsynaptic response is produced less than half of the time when a presynaptic nerve impulse arrives at a synapse." Another scientific paper says, "In the cortex, individual synapses seem to be extremely unreliable: the probability of transmitter release in response to a single action potential can be as low as 0.1 or lower.")  The more evidence we have of very fast and very accurate calculation occurring by humans unaided by any devices,  the stronger is the evidence against the claim that human math calculation occurs from brain activity. 

It is therefore very important to collect and study all cases of exceptional human mathematics performance. The more such cases we find, and the more dramatic such cases are, the stronger is the case against the claim that unaided human math calculation is a neural phenomenon. Or to put it another way, the credibility of claims that math calculation is a brain phenomenon is inversely proportional to the speed and reliability of the best cases of human math  performance.  The more cases that can be found of humans that seem to calculate too quickly and too accurately for a noisy address-free brain to ever do,  the stronger is the case that human thinking is not a neural phenomenon but instead a spiritual or psychic or metaphysical phenomenon.  Let us look at some newspaper clips that document such cases. 

Below is a quote from page 265 of the April 23, 1936 edition of the  periodical Light, which you can read here:

"Quoting from the Portuguese journal, Constancia, the Revive Spirite has a report of Moreira, the Blind Boy of Lisbon. This 12-year-old boy, blind practically from birth, of very rudimentary education and humble origin, is another example of the child prodigy type and the problem of supernormal faculties. He has repeatedly been examined by groups of mathematical, medical and psychological experts, sometimes for hours at a time, during which he instantaneously supplied the answers to lengthy mathematical problems, up to the multiplication of 21 digits by 15 digits; at the termination of the test, he will even amaze his interlocutors by dictating a long row of figures representing the sum of the total answers previously given."

Below is a quote from the Omaha Morning Bee of May 12, 1924. We read of a young man with astonishing powers of calculation and memory:

"Maum Lotowsky, young Lithuanian student, has astonished Harvard, Tufts and Columbia universities. When told the date of a man’s birth he instantly calculates back and tells the man on what day of the week he was born, allowing for changes of the day each year and for leap years. He works out logarithmic numbers in his mind, after glancing at a long list of complicated figures repeats them without a mistake."

In the 19th newspaper account here, we have a similar account:

Here is another newspaper account of a math marvel, from the Topeka State Journal of November 16, 1912. The account says the man had these amazing powers despite a serious brain injury:

QUICK AT FIGURES 

Ed Shaw Can Tell Seconds and Minutes Quickly.

But He Has to Husk Corn to Make Living.

Hutchinson. Kan. Nov. 18. 

Ed Shaw, Reno county's human lightning calculator, has worked out two new mathematical problems. Here they are:

"First when will we have the same  number of seconds left in the year as are minutes gone in the year?

"Second when will there be the same number of minutes left in the

year as there are seconds gone in the month?"

Foolish waste of time, you say? Well, it s au a matter of taste. In

stead of worrying over election returns or checking golf scores, Mr. Shaw works out this kind of problems.

"I've figured it out," he said. "The answer to the first question is: The

25th of November, at 12 o'clock mid night. The answer to the second

question is: November 1, at 12 o'clock at night."

It's All in His Head.

Mr. Shaw doesn't use pencil and paper in doing mathematical stunts.

Everything is worked out in his head. Tell him how old you are and he'll tell you In a flash just how many days. hours, minutes and even seconds old you are. The reporter who wrote this article,

for instance, is one billion, nine million, one hundred and fifty-two thousand seconds old. It took Ed Shaw just two seconds to calculate it.

Ed Shaw is a farm hand and common laborer. He makes a living working on farms around Hutchinson and Nickerson. His home is in Grant township northwest of the city. When he was a little over a year old he met with an accident which injured his head. Ever since then something has been wrong with his brain. Part of his brain evidently is overdeveloped, - giving him an abnormal

power of calculating. He Is a steady, intelligent and hard working man, respected by all. 

Discovered Power as Boy.

"I first found out that I could do this kind of mental calculating when I was a boy 9 years old,'' said Mr. Shaw, today. "One night while I was in bed I got to figuring out how many days old

I was... I figured it out in my head. In the morning I told my mother and she got a paper and pencil and worked it out and found I had the right answer."

"As I got older the power developed until I could instantly multiply without figures, until now I can figure out any

sum. I can calculate down into the seconds any period of years."

The newspaper story below is from 1891:

"The late George Bidder, at the age of 8, could answer almost instantaneously how many farthings there were in any sum under £868,424,121.  Zerah Colburn was another lightning calculator of the same generation. Once he was asked to name the square of 999,999, which he instantly stated to he 999,908,000,001. He multiplied this by 49 and the product by the same number, and the total result he then multiplied by 25. He could raise the figure 8 to the sixteenth power almost instantly and with perfect ease. lie once instantly named the factors of 941 and 263, and in five seconds calculated the cube root of 413,993,348,677. —St. Louis Republic.

The 1912 newspaper account below gives an obituary of Arthur F. Griffith of Milford, Indiana, USA. 

"Without pencil or paper he could raise a figure to the sixth power in about eleven seconds: could multiply three figures by three figures in five seconds and could multiply nine figures by nine figures in eight seconds. As proof of his lightning calculating

system he once did the work of four teen clerks in the state auditor's office ... On three occasions, twice in Indianapolis, and once in Bloomington,  Ill., he won races with adding machines.

In a test before professors at Harvard he answered every mathematical question propounded—the fabled

'fourth dimension' alone being barred. Problems that would require hours of figuring by most persons were solved in a few moments by Griffith. The answer to a problem like this would be at bis tongue's end; 'What is the compound interest on 1 cent at per cent from the birth of Christ to the present date, and how far would that many silver dollars reach in the air if placed flat and against each other on every square |foot of a clear and level tile floor 25.000 miles in circumference?' Questions such as this were regarded as 'light mental exercises' by Mr. Griffith."

In the newspaper account you can read here, we read of a math calculation marvel named George Parker Bidder:

"The late Mr. George Parker Bidder cultivated his

remarkable faculty to a highly useful purpose...At the age of ten

we read that he answered in two minutes the question: What is the

interest of 1444 for 4444 days at 4 per cent per annum ? ... 

A year later he divided correctly less than a minute 468592413568

by 9076. At 12 years of age he answered in less than a minute the

question: if a distance of 99 inches is passed over in a second of time

how many inches will be passed 

over in 365 [days] 5 [hours] 48 [minutes] 55 seconds]?  Much

more surprising however was his  success when 13 years old in dealing with the question: What is the cube

root Of 897,339,273,974,002,155?  He

obtained the answer in 2 minutes : 964537."

The newspaper account here tells of the same George Parker Bidder:

The same newspaper account tells us this about Zerah Colburn:

Ever-prone to censor or distort in a way that prevents us from about learning correctly about phenomena that conflict with "brains make minds" ideology, Wikipedia gives us no details of Bidder's calculation powers, but merely tells us that in a book entitled "The Great Mental Calculators" Bidder was placed second, behind Jacques Inaudi.  The Wikipedia article on Jacques Inaudi also tells us almost nothing about his astonishing mental calculation abilities, telling us little more than that "he could readily indicate the day of the week of any date from the 17th century onward."

The newspaper account here gives us details of the power of Jacques Inaudi when he was only a boy of 11:

"Jacques Inaudi is advertised in Paris as a little prodigy. He is 11 years old and a lightning calculator. The first task that he was asked to  perform was a subtraction sum, and when eight figures had been

given out some of the audience, fearing that his brain would be too heavily burdened, called out, 'That is enough!'  Inaudi, however, immediately replied, 'It does not matter. Give me some more,' 

and he had accordingly to subtract one line of fifteen figures from another of the same number, giving the result of

the operation without any appreciable delay. One of the spectators, advanced in years, put the following query to the 'calculating boy':

'I am twenty days less than 80 years old. How many hours have I lived?' After devoting about a minute to the mental

calculator, Inaudi gave the answer as 753,306 hours, which proved correct. He was then made to do multiplication and

division sums, with lines of figures to trillions and quadrillions, and always worked them out ' in his head' without the

slightest mistake or stumble. Among his other trials was the solution of a simple equation. A gentleman asked, ' If to my present age I added a third of my age and six years more I should be a hundred and twenty-six years old ; what is my age?'  Inaudi replied, 'Oh, that is easy enough ; you are ninety." Some body else asked him the cube root of 39,304, and, with scarcely a moment's hesitation, he answered, 'thirty-four.' "

In the newspaper account you can read here, we read of a math calculation marvel named Jedediah Buxton:

"Jedediah Buxton was another prodigious calculator more

remarkable in some respects than
either Colburn or Bidder. He never learned to write and in other
branches of education was as back ward as a boy of 10 while his mental faculties were slow saving always his faculty of calculation. So completely was he absorbed in his theme that he took little cognizance of external objects save as they suggested themselves. Thus if a period of time or the age of a man were spoken of Buxton at once announced that that made so many seconds and a distance
was to him so many hair-breadths. By walking over the fields of Sir
John Rhodes lordship of Elinton his step was as infallible as a surveyors chain. Buxton gave the proprietor their contents of some
thousands of acres first in acres then in roods, perches, square feet
square inches, and finally in square hair-breadths, forty eight to each
side of an inch.  He had the faculty of being able to rest a calculation at any stage and take it up next morning a week later or after a lapse of months. He could number all the pints of beer he had ever drunk at all the houses he had ever visited in half a century. 

Among the problems given him to solve were such as this: How many cubical eighths of an inch are there in a quadrangular mass 23145789 yards long 5642732 yards wide and 54966
yards thick an appalling calculation which he performed
mentally. Once he set himself to doubling a farthing 140 times and
on another occasion he made him self in his own phrase drunk
with reckoning by calculating how many hairs an inch long and
how many grains of eight different sorts of cereals there were in a mass of 200000000000 cubic miles having previously counted the hairs and grains in a single inch to get his point of departure. What was most curious about Buxton perhaps was his capacity for carrying on these calculations while conversing or listening "

In another newspaper account we are told this about Buxton:

"He had a remarkable memory, and while In the midst of a problem he could desist and resume the operation again where he had left off, even if it were n year after. A remarkable thing about the man was that he would allow two persons to propose different problems at the same time, and he would answer each without the least confusion. He could also talk freely while working out his problems."

They Also Mentally Calculated Faster Than a Brain Could Ever Do

The credibility of claims that mathematical calculation comes from brains is inversely proportional to the speed and capacity and reliability at which things can be mentally calculated. There are numerous signal slowing factors in the brain, such as the relatively slow speed of dendrites, and the cumulative effect of synaptic delays in which signals have to travel over relatively slow chemical synapses (by far the most common type of synapse in the brain). As explained in my post here, such physical factors should cause brain signals to move at a typical speed very many times slower than the often cited figure of 100 meters per second: a sluggish "snail's pace" speed of only about a centimeter per second (about half an inch per second).  Ordinary everyday evidence of very fast and accurate math calculation is therefore evidence against claims that unaided human math calculation occurs because of brain activity, particularly because the brain is totally lacking in the things humans add to constructed objects to allow fast recall (things such as sorting and addressing and indexes). Chemical synapses in the brain do not even reliably transmit signals. Scientific papers say that each time a signal is transmitted across a chemical synapse, it is transmitted with a reliability of 50% or less.  (A paper states, "Several recent studies have documented the unreliability of central nervous system synapses: typically, a postsynaptic response is produced less than half of the time when a presynaptic nerve impulse arrives at a synapse." Another scientific paper says, "In the cortex, individual synapses seem to be extremely unreliable: the probability of transmitter release in response to a single action potential can be as low as 0.1 or lower.")  The more evidence we have of very fast and very accurate calculation occurred by humans unaided by any devices,  the stronger is the evidence against the claim that human math calculation occurs from brain activity. 

It is therefore very important to collect and study all cases of exceptional human mathematics performance. The more such cases we find, and the more dramatic such cases are, the stronger is the case against the claim that unaided human math calculation is a neural phenomenon. Or to put it another way, the credibility of claims that math calculation is a brain phenomenon is inversely proportional to the speed and reliability of the best cases of human math  performance.  The more cases that can be found of humans that seem to calculate too quickly and too accurately for a noisy address-free brain to ever do,  the stronger is the case that human thinking is not a neural phenomenon but instead a spiritual or psychic or metaphysical phenomenon.  My previous post "They Mentally Calculated Faster Than a Brain Could Ever Do" described many such cases, as did my post "They Too Mentally Calculated Faster Than a Brain Could Ever Do." Now let us look at some more cases of this type. 

Some cases of exceptional math performance can be found in the book The Great Mental Calculators by Steven B. Smith. Below from page 179 are the results of very hard math calculations by Arthur Griffith (born 1880):

We see above a record of blazing-fast speed in very hard math calculations.  The "extraction of cube root" referred to is solving the problem: what number multiplied by itself three times gives the supplied number?  The "extraction of a square root" referred to is solving the problem: what number multiplied by itself twice times gives the supplied number? 

A long newspaper article on Arthur Griffith can be read here. We read this:

"While engaged in working a series of tests Griffith multiplied 142,857,143 by 465,891,443 and obtained the product 66,555,920,495,127,349, in ten seconds. He multiplied 999,999,999 by 327,841,277, and had completed the writing of the product, 327,841,276,672,188,723, in nine and a half seconds. Other numbers required a longer time, but in no case was the time needed to complete the multiplication more than thirty seconds. Factors of numbers were called out as quickly as the number was submitted. The fifth power of 996, which equals 980,159,361,278,976, was obtained in thirty-seven seconds. Cubes of large numbers were given without hesitation, and in case the number was not a perfect cube the number which is the nearest perfect cube was given at once."

Using the web site here, I verified that the first  multiplication result is correct. The second multiplication result, 327,841,276,672,188,723, is incorrect only in the fifth-to-last digit, all other digits being correct. We can't tell whether it was a calculation error by Griffith, or an error by whoever wrote down his answer or who typeset the newspaper article. 

On page 297 the author says he was asked by Wim Klein to give two five-digit numbers. The author gave 57,825 and 13,489. In 44 seconds Klein multiplied the two numbers together mentally. On the same page we are told Klein extracted the 19th root of a 133-digit number in under two minutes. 

On page 301 we read this about lightning-fast calculations by Maurice Dagbert:

The same page refers to astounding multitasking and number memorization capabilities of Dagbert:

We read on the next page that Dagbert does not write any intermediate results, but simply announces the number calculated. On page 58 of the book Mental Prodigies by Fred Barton, we have the comment below, which may explain some of Dagbert's abilities. It is a description of something like a photographic memory for numbers:

On page 60 of the same book we read about these "instantaneous" mental calculation feats of Dagbert:

On page 63 of the same book we are told that Dagbert would do performances in which he faced away from a blackboard, and audience members would call out 2-digit numbers that were placed in a grid like the one below. Without  ever viewing the blackboard, Dagbert would correctly name all numbers and their positions in the grid, as well as telling the sum of each of the columns. 

On page 306 of The Great Mental Calculators we read of the astonishing calculation ability of Shakuntala Devi:

In the 1952 newspaper story here, we read of rave reviews of Devi's calculation abilities. A reporter attempts to stump her:

"Your reporter, at this point, slyly glanced at a piece of paper he had laboriously prepared, and asked: 'What is the cube root of 3,375 multiplied by the cube root of 117,649 divided by 5?'

'147,' said Shakuntala, stifling a yawn, and adding, almost apologetically: 'I am usually given problems that present difficulties of one sort or another.' ”

 The answer of 147 is correct. You can get the intermediate numbers in this calculation by using the cube root calculator here, but no such tools existed in 1952. 

On page 311 of The Great Mental Calculators, we learn of the astonishing short-term memory of Hans Eberstark, who could memorize 40 digits after hearing them spoken only once:

They Too Mentally Calculated Faster Than a Brain Could Ever Do

 The credibility of claims that mathematical calculation comes from brains is inversely proportional to the speed and capacity and reliability at which things can be mentally calculated. There are numerous signal slowing factors in the brain, such as the relatively slow speed of dendrites, and the cumulative effect of synaptic delays in which signals have to travel over relatively slow chemical synapses (by far the most common type of synapse in the brain). As explained in my post here, such physical factors should cause brain signals to move at a typical speed very many times slower than the often cited figure of 100 meters per second: a sluggish "snail's pace" speed of only about a centimeter per second (about half an inch per second).  Ordinary everyday evidence of very fast and accurate math calculation is therefore evidence against claims that unaided human math calculation occurs because of brain activity, particularly because the brain is totally lacking in the things humans add to constructed objects to allow fast recall (things such as sorting and addressing and indexes). Chemical synapses in the brain do not even reliably transmit signals. Scientific papers say that each time a signal is transmitted across a chemical synapse, it is transmitted with a reliability of 50% or less.  (A paper states, "Several recent studies have documented the unreliability of central nervous system synapses: typically, a postsynaptic response is produced less than half of the time when a presynaptic nerve impulse arrives at a synapse." Another scientific paper says, "In the cortex, individual synapses seem to be extremely unreliable: the probability of transmitter release in response to a single action potential can be as low as 0.1 or lower.")  The more evidence we have of very fast and very accurate calculation occurred by humans unaided by any devices,  the stronger is the evidence against the claim that human math calculation occurs from brain activity. 

It is therefore very important to collect and study all cases of exceptional human mathematics performance. The more such cases we find, and the more dramatic such cases are, the stronger is the case against the claim that unaided human math calculation is a neural phenomenon. Or to put it another way, the credibility of claims that math calculation is a brain phenomenon is inversely proportional to the speed and reliability of the best cases of human math  performance.  The more cases that can be found of humans that seem to calculate too quickly and too accurately for a noisy address-free brain to do ever do,  the stronger is the case that human thinking is not a neural phenomenon but instead a spiritual or psychic or metaphysical phenomenon. I presented quite a few such cases in my earlier post "They Mentally Calculated Faster Than a Brain Could Ever Do." Now let's look at some more such cases. 

On page 54 of the book Mental Prodigies by Fred Barton, which you can read here, we read of a series of very hard questions posed by an examination committee to a calculating marvel named Arumogam. 

The book tells us on page 56 that each of the questions was answered correctly by Arumogam "within a few seconds." Evidently he could do very hard math problems at lightning speeds. 

On page 66 the book tells us of a mental calculator named Oscar Verhaeghe. We read that he could perform the very hard calculations below very quickly:

We are told on the next page that this person was "incapable of devising the slightest calculation artifice," and that the answers seemed to rise up spontaneously in his mind. 

The 1924 article below refers to a "human calculating machine" who can "name immediately the day of the week for any date in the past or future" and who can multiply two forty-digit numbers mentally without using paper or pencil. 

The 1934 newspaper article here refers to people with amazingly rapid calculation ability, saying that many of them had normal or below normal intelligence:

"A boy of sixteen who can tell the day of the week on which any date

occurs, either hack to 1600 or forward to 2000, has been discovered

in a British mental welfare hospital. Youthful prodigies of this kind occur from time to time, but in most cases such powers don't last a very long time. For instance, one youngster who could work out in his head multiplication sums whose answers extended to 30 figures when he was ten years old find no more power of calculation than the ordinary Intelligent person when he grew up. It is also possible, as has been demonstrated In numbers of cases, for a human 'calculating machine' to be below the normal level of intelligence in other respects. Out of thirteen cases described by one investigator, in which those powers wore present during the early years of life, three were of average brain power, four were described as 'low' intelligence, and one as 'very low.' ”

On the page here we have a story entitled "Blind Indian Billed as Adding Machine." We read this:

"As a sort of human calculating machine, a blind employee of the Meenakshi Mills, at Madurai,Madras State, India, can solve intricate mathematical problems in a few seconds.

P. S. Guruswami is the mathematical wizard. His job is to

check and verify calculations made by clerks and accountants."

In the 1921 newspaper story here, we read below of another Indian capable of lightning-fast math calculations such as multiplying together a six-digit numbers and a seven-digit number:

We read in this newspaper article of a boy of only six, Roy Fork, who could perform calculations with astonishing speed:

"He is Master Roy Fork, aged six, son of F. L. Fork, well-driller, residing on Franklin avenue. While bright in all his school work, the youngster is a prodigy in mathematics. He knows the calendar by heart and although given the most severe questions with regard to days and dates, never makes a mistake. If you tell him your age he can tell in a second the year you were born, and if you give him the date of your birth day, and ask him what day of the week it comes on he replies at once, correctly and without fail." 

According to the "Juvenile Wonders" news article you can read here, there were these prodigies:

" 'Marvelous Griffith,' as he was called, could raise a number to the sixth power in eleven seconds. Truman Safford at the age often could multiply one row of fifteen figures by another of eighteen In a minute or less."

According to the press account below, Alfred A. Gamble could multiply two six-digit figures in only four seconds:

The account below is one of many accounts of mental marvels from India. 

The account below (part of the larger account here) tells of an illiterate math marvel named Reuben Fields who seemed to be able to tell the day of the week of any supplied date. He seemed to be a kind of human watch, always able to name the correct time within two or three minutes. He also seemed to have a kind of photographic memory for numbers. The first and third of these abilities has been reported of quite a few other people, but the time-keeping skill is much more rare. 

Lighting-Fast Readers Exceed the Speed Limits of a Brain

The paper "A Review of the Savant Syndrome and its Possible Relationship to Epilepsy" by neurologist John R. Hughes has some astonishing accounts of extraordinary mental abilities. We read of "the hyperlexics, who (in one case) can read a page in 8 seconds and recall the text later at a 99% level."  We read of "one savant who could recite without error the value of Pi to 22,514 places," a reference to Daniel Tammet.  Later more specifically we are told that "on American TV many viewers witnessed Daniel at 26 years of age in front of Oxford University dons reciting (without a single mistake) the value of Pi to 22,514 decimal places over a 5-hour period."

We read this:

"Thioux et al.. [5] described Donny, a young autistic savant, 'who is possibly the fastest and most accurate calendar prodigy ever described'. The title of this report likely justifies the latter statement : 'The day of the week when you were born in 700 msec.' " 

This seems to be reference to an ability to name the day of the week in which anyone was born, while taking less than a second to perform such a calculation.  We read of a case of hyperlexia:

"The life of one of the most famous savants, Kim Peek, was dramatized in the popular movie, 'Rain Man', played by actor Dustin Hoffman. Kim reads the left side of a page with his left eye and simultaneously the right side of the page with his right eye (without a corpus callosum). The time taken for these two pages for Kim is usually 8 seconds and upon testing for retention he was 99% correct of the material just read [2]. These values are in contrast to 45 seconds for reading and 45% correct on testing seen in a group of normal individuals."

The corpus callosum is the bundle of fibers connecting the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere of the brain. We might expect under "brains make minds" assumptions that not having a corpus callosum would produce terrible cognitive problems everywhere. But Kim Peek (born without a corpus callosum) had enormous memory abilities and way-better-than-normal reading abilities, as the quote above suggests. It is widely reported that Kim Peek remembered almost everything in thousands of books he had read, a claim that Hughes makes on page 7 of his paper.  

On the same page Hughes refers to acquired savant syndrome, which he describes as when "after some brain injury or brain disease, savant skills unexpectedly emerge, sometimes at a prodigious level, when no such skills were present before injury or illness.” He states this:

"Many examples were given by Treffert, including a 10-year-old boy knocked unconscious by a baseball, then later could do quick

calendar calculations, an 8-year-old boy with the similar talent after a left hemispherectomy [removal of half of the brain] and a 3-year-old child after meningitis was later considered a  musical genius. Also included was a 9-year-old boy who was shot with a bullet to the left brain, leaving him with a right-sided hemiparesis, later developing special mechanical abilities. Finally, two painters were mentioned who had significant qualitative improvements after strokes involving the left occipital lobe and thalamus." 

An old newspaper article describes a very fast reader:

As impressive as the case above is, the article below reports a speed-reading ability ten times faster: a rate of 8000 words per minute. We read that the subject had a 100% comprehension of the material read at this blazing-fast speed, based on test questions he answered about the material. 

You can read the article here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn93065779/1954-07-29/ed-1/seq-8/

The paper here documents an extraordinary "page at a glance" reading ability in two "super reader" subjects, an ability that may be related to photographic memory. We read this:

"In the test situation, the 15-year-old girl read a 6,000 word essay from Brown's 'Efficient Reading' at a rate of 80,000 words per minute with 100 percent comprehension. The 12-year-old girl attained a rate of 54,825 words per minute with 90 percent comprehension on a more difficult essay."

In the paper here we read this: "Gifted rapid readers (who can maintain 70 per cent or above comprehension at rates above 20,000 w.p.m. [words per minute] on Browns workbook Efficient Reading ) appear in her classes at a rate of 1 out of 100 or 1 per cent of the trained population."  Later we read this conclusion after tests were done: "The three subjects in this study did achieve at least the above rates of 20,000 w.p.m. with 70 per cent or better comprehension on an article from Brown’s Efficient Reading before impartial reading experts."

The newspaper article here notes that a 1990 version of the Guinness Book of World Records recorded that Howard Berg could read at 25,000 words per minute. 

In the paper here, we read this:

 "Some hyperlexic children can read anything placed before them, even though they may never have heard or seen those words before,

nor do they understand them. They rarely mispronounce even the most difficult words."

An old newspaper article refers to the phenomenal reading ability of William Gladstone: 

"Perhaps the fastest reader the world ever knew was Gladstone. He could read and digest a novel of 50,000 words, a scientific work as large or larger, a political treatise or a history by merely glancing at the leaves as he turned them over. His eye and mind seemed to photograph with the rapidity of an instantaneous camera."

A 1972 newspaper article tells us this:

"Glen Pesely may be the world's fastest reader. The 18-year-old California boy can read 27,000 words per minute with nearly 100 per cent comprehension."

The 1972 newspaper article below gives us more details on this Glen Peseley, saying he could read up to 27,000 words per minute:

You can read the story here:

https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SCS19721001.1.1&srpos=27&e=-------en--20--21--txt-txIN-%22fastest+reader%22-------

A 1969 newspaper article tells us this: "Jeanne Crandell, age 11, sixth grade, probably is the fastest reader in the world, reading as many as 70,000 words a minute." 

Reading some papers on Google Scholar, after searching for "hyperlexia," it seems that there exists a small number of super swift readers, often autistic, who have a stunning ability to read with astonishing speed, one that does not seem to the result of practice using speed reading techniques. 

The ability of humans to read at any fast rate is something beyond any explanation of neuroscientists or evolutionary biologists, who are also unable to explain the origin of language. We can imagine no "survival of the fittest" scenario that would explain the origin of language. All fast reading involves symbol recognition occurring at a blazing speed. Neuroscientists have no credible tale to tell of how any type of recognition could occur by means of the brain. Humans manufacture things such as books and computers that allow a fast recall of information. From such activity, we know the type of things that make possible fast recall: things such as addressing, indexing and sorting. The human brain has no such things. The brain has no addresses and nothing corresponding to indexes; nothing in a brain is sorted; and the brain has no indexes. The brain has many severe slowing factors which should make impossible very fast reading if such reading were to happen purely by brain activity. Such factors are discussed in my post here.  

The severe slowing factors include relatively slow dendrites, and synapses which each require a synaptic delay to transmit a signal. Because there are very many synapses for every neuron (as many as 1000), the cumulative delay caused by synaptic delays should utterly rule out phenomena such as very fast reading, if such phenomena occur by brain activity. Then there's the fact that only about half of the axons in the cortex of the brain are the faster myelinated type of axon (as discussed in the scientific paper here). The other half of the axons are very much slower unmyelinated axons, which have a transmission speed 10 to 100 times slower than myelinated axons. The diagram below schematically depicts the "speed bumps" in the brain.  Such "speed bumps" vastly outnumber the fastest parts (myelinated axons).  The result is that brains must be too slow to explain phenomena such as very fast reading with good understanding of what is read. 

An ability to read fast is something we should never expect to occur in any naturally arising organism.  An ability to read fast is something we should expect to arise in a species only if some higher power or higher agency wanted for a species to develop a civilization like humans have, one with things like cities, architecture, literature and art. 

In the diagram below we see four colored areas. At the center is the simplest phenomenon of consciousness, merely being awake and aware of something. The yellow area represents some of the commonly known mental phenomena that are more than mere consciousness. The orange area represents little-known powers of the human mind (or types of human experiences) that are not disputed by professors. The green area represents paranormal abilities of the human mind or types of paranormal human experiences that are disputed by professors, even though the evidence for such abilities and experiences is very good. The professors who dispute the reality of such abilities and experiences are typically those who have never bothered to seriously study the evidence for such abilities and experiences.  Almost none of the items mentioned in the diagram can be credibly explained as being caused by the brain. You might call the phenomena mentioned in the green part of the diagram "icing on the cake" for the person arguing that the brain cannot explain the human mind. The phenomena mentioned in the green part of the diagram strengthen the case against thinking that your brain is the source of your mind and the storage place of memories. But that case can be adequately made without even appealing to such disputed phenomena. 

Some of the items mentioned in the green part of the diagram are discussed in my posts and free online books here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here (some of which may require pressing Older Posts at the bottom right of the page to fully explore the relevant evidence). 

The diagram helps show the stupidity of the approach taken by many of today's thinkers, an approach in which the thinker tries to make his explanation task a million times easier by the silly trick of describing a mere "problem of consciousness" that needs to be solved.   The human mind and its capabilities and experiences is a reality a million times more than mere "consciousness."  It is an absurd problem misstatement to describe the problem of explaining human minds as a mere problem of explaining consciousness.  The person who makes that mistake is committing a blunder as bad as the person who tries to reduce the problem of explaining the arising of human bodies to a mere "problem of solidity origination." 

Postscript: In the paper here we read of some more interesting cases of acquired savant syndrome:

"In his book Musicophilia, Oliver Sacks (2009), records the case of Tony Cicoria, a surgeon who was struck by lightning in 1994. He had no prior interest in classical music, bur rapidly became an obsessive and skilled pianist following his recovery. A comparable striking case of acquired mathematical ability is the case of Jason Padgett, who became a talented mathematician after being struck on the head with an iron bar in 2002 (Padgett & Seaberg 2014). According to his narrative, following the attack Mr. Padgett first experienced symptoms of OCD and PTSD, and then began to develop visualisation of mathematical theories he was unable to name."

HSAM Wonder Daniel McCartney Was a Math and Memory Marvel

The credibility of claims that memory recollections come from brains is inversely proportional to the speed and capacity and reliability at which things can be recalled. There are numerous signal slowing factors in the brain, such as the relatively slow speed of dendrites, and the cumulative effect of synaptic delays in which signals have to travel over relatively slow chemical synapses (by far the most common type of synapse in the brain). As explained in my post here, such physical factors should cause brain signals to move at a typical speed very many times slower than the often cited figure of 100 meters per second: a sluggish "snail's pace" speed of only about a centimeter per second (about half an inch per second).  Ordinary everyday evidence of very fast thinking and instant recall is therefore evidence against claims that memory recall occurs because of brain activity, particularly because the brain is totally lacking in the things humans add to constructed objects to allow fast recall (things such as sorting and addressing and indexes). Chemical synapses in the brain do not even reliably transmit signals. Scientific papers say that each time a signal is transmitted across a chemical synapse, it is transmitted with a reliability of 50% or less.  (A paper states, "Several recent studies have documented the unreliability of central nervous system synapses: typically, a postsynaptic response is produced less than half of the time when a presynaptic nerve impulse arrives at a synapse." Another scientific paper says, "In the cortex, individual synapses seem to be extremely unreliable: the probability of transmitter release in response to a single action potential can be as low as 0.1 or lower.")  The more evidence we have of very fast and very accurate and very capacious recall (what a computer expert might call high-speed high-throughput retrieval), the stronger is the evidence against the claim that memory recall occurs from brain activity. 

It is therefore very important to collect and study all cases of exceptional human memory performance. The more such cases we find, and the more dramatic such cases are, the stronger is the case against the claim that memory is a neural phenomenon. Or to put it another way, the credibility of claims that memory is a brain phenomenon is inversely proportional to the speed and reliability of the best cases of human mental performance.  The more cases that can be found of humans that seem to recall too quickly for a noisy address-free brain to do ever do, or humans that seem to recall too well for a noisy, index-free, signal-mangling brain to ever do,  the stronger is the case that memory is not a neural phenomenon but instead a spiritual or psychic or metaphysical phenomenon.  

In the paper "Remarkable Cases of Memory" by W.D. Henkle in The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 5, No. 1 (January, 1871), we read many accounts of people with memories far greater than that of the average man. Here is one account:

"Casaubon thus speaks of Joseph Scaliger: 'There was no subject in which any one could desire instruction which he was not capable of giving. He had read nothing (and what had he not read?) which he did not forthwith remember; there was nothing so obscure or obsolete in any ancient author, Greek, Latin, or Hebrew, with regard to which, when interrogated, he could not at once give a reply. He was at home in the history of all nations and all ages, the successions of government, the affairs of the ancient church; the properties, differences, and names, whether ancient or modern, of animals, plants, metals, and all natural objects, he knew accurately. With the situations of places, the boundaries of provinces, and their division at different times, he was perfectly familiar. He had left untouched none of the severer studies or sciences. So extensive and accurate was his acquaintance with languages, that if, during his lifetime, he had made but this single acquirement, it would have appeared miraculous.' He committed [to memory] Homer in twenty-one days, the other Greek writers inside of two years. Sir Wm. Hamilton says, 'taking him all in all, he was the most learned man the world has ever seem. ' "

Henkle then documents in the greatest detail the extraordinary memory and calculation abilities of Daniel McCartney, born in Pennsylvania, USA on September 10, 1817. Henkle gives a transcript of the second interview he had with Daniel McCartney. In the interview Henkle would ask about random dates in the past Henkle had selected. The numbers in parentheses before the answers are how long a delay before the answer was given.  We may presume that Henkle knew stenography or had a stenographer with him. Before the advent of tape recording, stenography was a skill allowing you to write down exactly what someone was saying, even if he talked at a normal pace. 

Q. October 8,1828?

A. (2 seconds.) Wednesday. It was cloudy and drizzled rain. I carried dinner to my father where he was getting out coal.

Q. February 21, 1829 ?

A. (2 sec.) Saturday. It was cloudy in the morning, and clear in the afternoon ; there was a little snow on the ground. An uncle who lived near sold a horse-beast that day for $35.

Q. October 13,1851 ? 

A. (15 sec.) Monday. It was kinder [sic] pleasant-like weather. I stayed all night Sunday night at my brother's, and next day I went to the depot in Cardington to saw wood.

Q. July 1, 1863 ?

A. (1 sec.) Wednesday. Sultry and cloudy. I kept the baby of the family I lived with, while the man and his wife went to Tipton to buy goods. "

All of the days of the week were correct. Below is another section of the interview. 

"Q. March 5, 1849?'

A. (2 sec.) Monday. It was a disagreeable sloppy day. Gen. Taylor was inaugurated that day. I heard at the time, that the Bible Washington was sworn in on was carried from New York to Washington to use at Taylor's inauguration.

Q. April 15, 1861 ?

A. (3 sec.) Monday. It was bright and clear. Fort Sumter was taken the Friday before. I was cutting stove wood for a man.

Q. May 8,1846?

A. (2 sec.) Friday. It rained some. The Saturday before, I attended a quarterly meeting in Iberia. [He is a Methodist.]

Q. December 2,1859 ?

A. (2 sec.) Friday. It was very cold and raw. On the Tuesday before, it began to grow very cold, and continued cold until Saturday, when it began to moderate. John Brown was hanged on the 9th, a week later.

 Q. Are you certain?

A. I am not positive.

 Q. Do you remember anything in particular that occurred that day? 

A. Nothing particular. I remember it was pretty cold getting in wood.

Q.. April 12,1861?

A. (2 sec.) Friday. It was pleasant but cloudy. I went from Wilton to my brother's, ten miles away. 

Q. What else happened that day ? 

A. Fort Sumter was taken

Q. April 9,1865?

A. (5 sec.) Sunday. It was cloudy in the afternoon. Lee surrendered that morning.

The days of the week McCartney gave are all correct. His statements about the inauguration of  General Zachary Taylor and the capture of Fort Sumter are correct. The only mistake he made is that when given the date that John Brown was hung, he has mentioned the hanging of John Brown, but incorrectly stated that it was a week later. 

Below is another section of the interview:

Q. December 28,1835?

A. (2 sec.) Monday. Cool but pleasant. We were chopping in the clearing, and came near falling [felling] a tree on one of the boys.

Q. June 15,1836?

A. (2 sec.) Wednesday. It was very clear, hot weather. The folks that I lived with had a swarm of bees that day.

Q. December 25, 1837?

A. (2 sec.) Monday, Christmas day. It was raw, but not very cold. My father was buried that day.

Q. April 4,1841 ?

A. (3 sec.) Sunday. It was rainy and muddy. Gen. Harrison died that day.

Q. July 21,1861 ?

A. (2 sec.) Sunday. Very hot and sultry. It was the day of the Battle of Bull Run.

The days of the week given were all correct. April 4, 1841 was the date of the death of General Harrison (US president William Henry Harrison), and July 21, 1861 was the date of the Battle of Bull Run. 

Below is another section of the interview:

Q. What is 32 times 45?

A. (2 sec.) 1440. I multiplied by 5 and then by 9.

Q. What is 93 times 97?

A. (12 sec.) 9021. From 9300 I took away 3 times 93.

Q. What is 53 times 84?

A. (8 sec.) 4452. Twice 53 is 106 ; 10 times 106 is 1060 ;

adding 53 gives 1113; multiplying by 4, 4452.

Q. What is 123 times 456 ?

A. (35 sec.) 56,088. Multiply 456 by 100 ; then 23 by 400 ;

then add; multiply 23 by 56 and add.

Q. What is 3756 times 182 ?

A. (4.5 minutes. He became confused.) 683,592.

Q. What is the sum of 26, 67, 43, 38, 54, 62, 87, 65, 53, 44,

77, 33, 84, 56 and 14 ? (One minute occupied in calling the

numbers.)

A. (Instantly.) 803

The answers given are all correct. Later in the interview McCartney is asked "How do you bound Tennessee?"  He gives this completely correct answer: "It is bounded on the north by Kentucky and a small part of Virginia, on the east by North Carolina, on the southeast by Georgia, on the south by Alabama and Mississippi, and on the west by Arkansas and a small portion of Missouri." The answer suggests something like a photographic memory. 

We then have a transcript of McCartney being asked about many random dates during the past few decades, and in each case he correctly gives the day of the week, and recalls various things about what he was doing on that date. On page 21 we have some more math questions:

• He is asked what is the cube root of 59,319, and in 30 seconds gives the correct answer of 39. 
• He is asked the cube root of 76,507, and in 17 seconds gives the correct answer of 43.
• He is asked the cube root of 117,649, and in 5 seconds gives the correct answer of 49, saying that he knew that long ago. 
• He is asked the cube root of 571,787, and in 15 seconds gives the correct answer of 83.  
• He is asked the cube root of 357,911 and in 15 seconds gives the correct answer of 71.
• He is asked the cube root of 110,592 and in 2 seconds gives the correct answer of 48.
• He is asked the cube root of 389,017 and in 15 seconds gives the correct answer of 73.
• He is asked the cube root of 4,741,632 and in 3.5 minutes gives the correct answer of 265.  

Henkle had a third interview with McCartney, and asked him about the same dates that he had previously asked about. This was an excellent way to see whether the claimed recollection of things McCartney did on a day long ago were actual recollections and not confabulations.  McCartney passed this test well. Henkle states this:

"In this review Mr. McCartney reproduced his answers as to dates, kind of weather, and circumstances, with the exceptions given below. His description of the weather was in other words, but in every case essentially the same, thus showing that he remembered distinctly the facts but not the words that he had previously used. The same may be said as to his reproduction of circumstances. In some cases he expanded the accounts, and in others he shortened them. Some of the days of the week were given in a shorter time and others after a longer time than on his first examination."

Henkle then discusses some minor differences in the recollections about what the weather was on some particular day and what McCartney was doing, but they seem to be no more than what you would get from a minor narrative variation in what you get from someone with the same memory. 

Cases such as the case of Daniel McCartney intensify the explanatory shortfall of "brains make minds" explanation and "brains store memories" explanation. We have here a case of lightning-fast mathematical calculation ability and lightning-fast autobiographical recall stretching back decades. Given the high number of brain physical shortfalls, neural explanations cannot account for the mental abilities of ordinary people. When we look cases such as that of Daniel McCartney, the failure of neural explanations to credibly account for human mental abilities becomes all the more obvious. 

The paper discussed above (the paper "Remarkable Cases of Memory" by W.D. Henkle) may have been the first paper ever documenting the phenomenon of Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM, also called hyperthymesia). In recent decades many other cases have been documented of HSAM subjects (such as Jill Price) with the ability to recall almost every day of their adult lives. You can read about some of the cases in my series of posts here. A scientific paper documented the ability of such HSAM subjects to score 25 times higher on a random dates test than control subjects. 

 In the 1972 book "Coding Processes in Human Memory" we have a  chapter entitled "How Good Can Human Memory Be?" written by Earl Hunt and Tom Love of Washington University.  Registered users at www.archive.org can read the whole chapter using the link here. The authors start telling us about a subject they studied who they call VP. We are told VP was born in Latvia in 1935, and that by the age of five he had memorized the street map of Riga, a city of 500,000.  We are told he could play up to 60 games of chess simultaneously by correspondence, without consulting written records. 

The authors did tests on VP. The most impressive result is the result shown below, in which VP manages to recall a short story almost verbatim an hour after reading it twice, and also six weeks later, even though he had not been told he would be tested on the story a second time. The story was one notable for being hard-to-remember.

At the end of the chapter, we are given the text of the story, VP's first recollection of it, and the recollection six weeks later. The story is about 350 words long. Here is one example of how good the recollection was. The story begins, "One night two young men from Eugulac went down to the river to hunt seals, and while they

were there it became foggy and calm." An hour later VP recalls all words of this sentence in correct order, missing only the "and." Six weeks later VP recalled the same sentence exactly as well as he did the first time.