Root of all easy: Lemaire did this sum in 2004 in less than four seconds

Alexis Lemaire has broken the record for finding the 13th root of a 200-digit number. It's an incredibly hard calculation so how does the "human calculator" do it?

Fancy yourself as a bit of mental arithmetics buff, one of those who relishes totting up the bill after a restaurant meal for 12, one of those who looks down their nose at calculator users?

Well try this for size.

The task is to find the 13th root of 85,877,066,894,718,045,
602,549,144,850,158,599,202,771,247,748,960,878,023,151,
390,314,284,284,465,842,798,373,290,242,826,571,823,153,
045,030,300,932,591,615,405,929,429,773,640,895,967,991,
430,381,763,526,613,357,308,674,592,650,724,521,841,103,
664,923,661,204,223.

The answer's 2396232838850303. Multiply that by itself 13 times and you get the above. Even with a calculator you wouldn't beat Alexis Lemaire doing the calculation in his head.

On your marks... Lemaire prepares to break the record at Oxford

"It is quite difficult. I did a lot of preparation for this. More than four years of work and a lot of training every day. A lot of memorising. I need three things - calculating, memorising and the third on mathematical skills. It is a lot of work and maybe a natural gift."

There is a long-standing fascination with those who can accomplish astounding feats of mental agility. The "ordinary" human wants to know how, but sadly the geniuses and the savants can only offer fragments of insight into how they function, and the scientists who have studied them rarely offer a definitive answer.

Researchers have tried to link problems with the brain either through trauma or malformation to extraordinary mental abilities - one of the theories being that damage to one area prompts compensation in another. Brain scientist Dr Allan Snyder has suggested that everyone may possess such abilities but be unable to access them.

Transforming numbers

Kim Peek, the inspiration for Dustin Hoffman's character in the movie Rain Man, has a malformed brain and a below average IQ and yet is able to rapidly read books, memorising vast swaths of information.

I have these associations between places and numbers - some places are imaginary, I try to vary so I don't confuse the numbers Alexis Lemaire

"When I think of numbers sometimes I see a movie, sometimes sentences. I can translate the numbers into words. This is very important for me. The art is to convert memory chunks into some kind of structure.

"I see images, phrases, actions. It's very tactile, sensitive. I have these associations between places and numbers. Some places are imaginary, I try to vary so I don't confuse the numbers. It's important to memorise. I have to be precise."

Lemaire's explanation is similar to that of British savant Daniel Tammet. Tammet set the world record for reciting pi at more than 22,000 digits at the museum in 2004.

To him, each number has a distinct colour and appearance, some beautiful, some not, with each complex calculation making up a landscape.

Icelandic in a week

But his skills also stretch to words, with Tammet having reportedly learned Icelandic in a week after a challenge.

It's safe to assume that Lemaire's brain processes don't involve the words "carry one". But there is an explanation for some of what he does. The memorisation he talks about is a series of algorithms, such as a set to tackle the first five digits of the 200-digit number.

He has refined these processes to mind-boggling lengths. For the much simpler calculation the 13th root of a 100-digit number, the first record was set at 23 minutes in 1970. Now Lemaire can manage the calculation in under four seconds.

And whatever the mental processes that lead him to the answer, the fact that he can do this in seconds and without pen or paper remains awesome to the "ordinary" brain.

Notes: If this guy can do what he says he can do, he can  be very dangerous..He couldn't go to a casino for example...He could calculate the calculations that the seed of a RNG does and thus deduct an approximation if not assert the correct number that the RNG is going to spit out (Hypothetically speaking)...How will he know what calculation the seed is doing? He can take the numbers that the RNG spits out and thus begin to make calculations to approximate in what STATE the RnG's seed is in and thus crack the RNG...And you know the seed doesn't make long digits calculations of 200 digits...At the most i say it will make calculations of 20 digit number NOT 200 digit...And in the future when all lotteries begin using RNG, this can have have the answer to what's going to play today, a week from now, 2 years from now, 5 years from now with or without pre-tests..Presently some state use RNG instead of the Hopper (the lotto machine)...

If you watch the movie Swordfish and so i've read on the internet, you will now that the FBI, CIA, Defense Department, Areas/Website where they have the Nukes Silos, they all have their website encrypted or password encrypted and their websites and any area-protected of high level clearance uses this method i would think...This websites generate passwords every 1 minute of every 5 minutes randomly..With the mind that this guy has he can calculate, the cycles the seed of the RNG makes and deduce what are going to be the next numbers...I don't know much about the subject but i am saying what i know...This guy could hack the lottery (not in the actual sense of the word hack) by knowing what's going to play and hack several high level areas...

The only defense the FBI, CIA, Defense Department have is to create an RNG with 3 or more seeds overlapped between each other or  3 RnG working as one, overlapping each other...But even so there is a small chance they could crack it...But if he uses small subtle patterns the seed leaves behind he could be dangerous...

Basically anything with ENCRYPTION this guy could potentially crack it...Is all a hypothesis...

And if you are aware 1 trillion has i think 12 zeros but we are talking about a number with 200 DIGITS or 200 zeros...Anything with Encryption doesn't even fly at those altitudes...

If he was to learn the entire dictionary, then that will be something...

I've been saying this is possible with a thinking supercomputer for 2 years now...

I don't know maybe i am comparing him with the smartest boy in the world and the huge memory that kid has that is from India...

Again!!!!!, this is all a HYPOTHESIS....Is not a theory is a hypothesis...