‘Human computer’ Shakuntala Devi has died

I was enthralled as a child reading her books - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakuntala_Devi#Books

I feel that she was a child-genius like Ramanujan, but was unfortunate to be not "discovered" by a mentor like G.H.Hardy. She had great memorization skills and logical thinking, so obviously excelled at writing puzzles' books. It's a pity that her contributions to modern mathematics is zilch. I still wonder why didn't she take up number theory. She went into astrology (yea, not astronomy), which is still debated as a pseudo-science. She could've done so much, but alas it's too late now. But well, each person to his own, each -ology to itself. RIP.

>Rated as one in 58 million for her stupendous mathematical feats by one of the fastest super-computers ever invented —the Univac — 1108 —, Ms. Devi believed in using grey cells to silicon chips.

This is somewhat unclear. Wikipedia clears up what's probably meant here:

>In 1977 in Dallas she competed with a computer to see who give the cube root of 188138517 faster. She won. At an American university she was asked to give the 23rd root of 91674867692003915809866092758538016248310668014430862240712651642793465704086709659 3279205767480806790022783016354924852380335745316935111903596577547340075681688305 620821016129132845564805780158806771. She answered in 50 seconds. Her answer of 546372891 took a UNIVAC 1108 computer a full minute (10 seconds more) to confirm that she was right after it was fed with 13000 instructions.

Anyway, the point isn't that she's faster than a computer (I mean, my laptop can conjure up that answer with PARI/GP in under a millisecond). The point is a) she pushed the limits of human achievement and showed that such feats were, in fact, possible, particularly for an adult beyond their twenties, and b) her passion for math inspired so many others. I mean, who wouldn't be impressed by someone who could calculate that? I doubt I could even keep track of all those digits given all the time in the world, much less give any answer better than an order of magnitude estimation in 50 seconds. Her intention was to show people (generally kids) that math is not this impossible, unconquerable monster of a subject, even though it may seem that way when you first encounter it, and even afterwards, as long as you treat it that way.

That's still a better uptime than any computer I've ever seen! (Come to think of it, with my health and with my luck, that's a better uptime than my mortal solenoid is probably ever going to have... :/)