Ripley's Believe It or Not by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! for June 30, 2013

Don’t you all wish to have met the recently late Ms. Devi?

I used to be able to do artillery adjustments in my head. I have no idea how I did it, they just came to me when I heard the adjust fire call over the radio in the DivArty TOC after I had read the artillery data sheet. Other than that, I’m not a super-duper wizard in math. I was a heck of a lot faster than the old FADAC computers, though.

Alcohol is BAD for your health. Heeding this advice is akin to the clam in 60’s menthal cigarettes cleared your lungs.

My late aunt could do that. We even checked her on it by looking at old calendars. She would ask when someone’s birthday was and then she’d say “You were born on a Tuesday” (or whatever).

So Could My Dad, Who also died this year (1924-3013)

That’s nothing. There used to be famous twins (documented by Oliver Sacks among others) who could instantly tell you the day of the week for any date in an 8,000-year range. They could also tell you which date Easter would fall on for a given year. And forget a lack of formal education — they were illiterate and seemingly incapable of simple arithmetic! They couldn’t explain how they knew the dates.

Savants(Islands of Intelligence in the brain) like Devi pop up from time to time..I recall the 60 minutes story on this severely retarded blind kidwho woke his mother up one night playing classical piano..Kid could hear a song once and then repeat it perfectly buthe had to have help going to the bathroom..

Shakuntala Devi came to our school in Hong Kong in the late 1960s. Her performance was fascinating to watch. Unlike autistic savants (such as depicted in the movie Rain Man) she was quite articulate. She just had some mathematical shortcuts either memorized or hardwired into her brain. It was not just the trick of giving the correct day of the week for a particular date, but the ability to do complex, multistage calculations in her head.