Dr Amit Garg - Haryana boy creates Memory and Mental Calculation World Records

Dr Amit Garg - Haryana boy creates Memory and Mental Calculation World Records

Fastest Time For An Individual To Solve Ten Mathematical Problems By Dividing A 10-Digit Number By A 5-Digit Number

At a time when the world is addicted to calculators and computers for even minor mathematical calculations, a Haryana boy and former IIT topper has created a new world record in mental division.

Dr Amit Garg, who did his masters in industrial technology from IIT Delhi before moving to the US for higher research, mentally divided a 10-digit number with a five-digit number in 34.5 seconds. The previous world record of a similar mental calculation is 36 seconds.

Dr Garg, currently a Senior Operations Research Analyst at Baybridge Decision Technology, Annapolis, USA, broke the record of Willem Bouman from the Netherlands. Based on the feat, he has been selected to represent India at the coveted Mental Calculations World Cup due to be held in Germany between September 29 and October 1 this year.

Speaking to The Tribune from the US today, Amit, whose current work profile involves writing mathematical and operations research algorithms to solve complex business problems, said he was proud to have achieved the record in 2012, which India is celebrating as the Year of Mathematics.

“Mathematics is my passion. These days when most people are habituated to calculators for division or multiplication, my feat, I hope, will help revive interest in mental calculations or at least pen and paper calculations,” said Amit, who moved to the US in 2002 for higher studies and started working there.

He broke the record in the US on March 15. The record has been accepted and published in two important record books -- the UK’s Book of Alternative Records and the US Record Setter.

On March 15, Amit did 10 such divisions correctly without writing any intermediate results or using any instruments in a record time of 34.5 seconds per division at Annapolis, MD, USA. These numbers were randomly selected by the programme provided by Ralf Laue, author of The Book of Alternative Records and organiser of the Mental Calculations World Cup and Co-Chairman of Memoriad, an institution dedicated to mental calculations.

“These tasks were such that there was no remainder. The world record was organised with the help of my employer in the US and there were witnesses,” said Amit, who has often surprised his colleagues by computing square roots and cube roots before the calculator could do it.

On March 31, Ralf Laue announced that Amit's world record of 5:45 minutes for 10 divisions had been accepted and beat the previous record of 6:07 minutes by Willem Bouman from the Netherlands.

“On the basis of my feat, I received the invitation to represent India in the fifth Mental Calculation World Cup competition in Giessen, Germany,” Amit said.

This international competition invites only 40 participants from the whole world with no individual country limit. Participants would be asked to find square root, do multiplications, additions as also surprise tasks like cube root, fractions, prime factors in a record time.

Dr Amit Garg - Fastest Memory and Mental Calculation World Records Video


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Youngest Girl sets Fastest maths calculation world record - Cherlyn Lee

Cherlyn Lee is only five, but she is a computational whiz.

She correctly answered six out of 10 tasks - each involving the addition of 10 rows of 10-digit numbers - at a mathematical olympiad on May 30. The score is a new Singapore record. The 5min 17sec she took was also the fastest among 345 other contestants, most of whom were older than her.

                                     Cherlyn Lee photo
By comparison, the world record holder is Mr Alberto Coto of Spain, who in 2008 got 10 out of 10 correct answers in 4min 26sec. He was 38 then.

As an additional sweetener, Cherlyn made it into the Singapore Book of Records as one of its youngest individual record holders. The youngest is a 23-month-old girl who swam 100m unassisted.

Cherlyn's remarkable feat is the first visible result of her parents' grand plan to develop her intelligence.

When she was three, her father, marketing manager Brandon Lee, began buying her kindergarten-level assessment books.

Then, in May last year, Mr Lee, 37, watched a

television show where he was introduced to CMA Mental Arithmetic school, which combines the millennia-old abacus as a counting instrument and the system of 'Image Memory' to allow quick and sharp number calculations.

First opened in December 2005, CMA has expanded from its Yishun headquarters to 17 other centres across the island, with 6,000 children having tried its programme.

Mr Lee decided to enrol Cherlyn in the school instead of music and dance classes.

From then on, either he or his wife, Ms Margaret Tan, 34, would spend two hours a day - weekends and public holidays included - to help Cherlyn with the coursework.

'When kids get attention, their interest grows for these things,' said Mr Lee.

Desire and motivation were certainly needed, as the curriculum, meant for children aged 31/2 to 13, was not easy.

To finish the 23-level course, students had to learn on a physical abacus, move on to an imaginary one, and then progress to using a 'two hand, four finger' method to calculate long arithmetic problems in their heads.

The final stretch was the hardest, involving problems which are read aloud, rather than on paper.

Perhaps as a sign of Cherlyn's impending achievement, she began to finish three to four 60-page practice books every week, when other children managed only 10 to 20 pages.

Furthermore, Cherlyn, who turns six on June 21, has been in the school for only 11 months and is almost done with the course. Others usually take five to seven years, said CMA chief executive Tay Shy Ching.

According to her parents, no one needs to make Cherlyn hit the books. 'Sometimes, I say she should sleep, but she will say: 'I want to do Chinese or English',' said Mr Lee. 'We don't force her.' The reticent child was firm about her favourite thing - 'numbers' - and named 'scientist' as a career aspiration.

The Lees intend to carry on with their daughter's intellectual development, eyeing vocabulary and speed reading as important skills to master.

But when the schooling is done, the real-world lessons come in. 'We will begin to teach her how to become a good person, a moral child,' said Mr Lee.

Their second child, three-year-old Xavier Lee, has yet to follow in his sister's footsteps.

As for Mr Coto's world record, Mr Lee feels it is not out of the question, but it is not a priority. 'Maybe we can try, but we don't set it as a target.'

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