Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/750

730 "I was born at Onorato, in Piedmont, on October 13, 1867.

"I began life as a shepherd boy, and when about six years old I went with my father into France. There I made a little living by wandering about from café to café dressed in my Savoyard's costume, and exhibiting some white mice which I had taught to perform some tricks.

"My brother taught me the names of the figures and their values, but the symbols which represent them were quite unknown to me. Indeed, it is only within the last five or six years that I have become at all familiar with them.

"As a matter of fact, the sight of figures embarrasses me even yet. It is through the sound, through the name of a figure, that my mind recognizes its value. If I see the sign which stands for it, I have to translate it, as it were, into a name familiar to my ear. Indeed, my eyes play no part at all in my process of calculation. 'Nine' conveys a distinct impression; the figure 9 has to be translated into 'nine' before I can do anything with it.

"The instant the names of the figures strike my ears the process of calculation begins. As one thing after another is disposed of, I place it on one side ready for reference in getting at the final result—not by mental vision, but by mental audition. I never, in thinking about numbers, see the figures; I hear them.

"My processes of calculation I had to invent. You see, I never learned arithmetic. When I had been taught the names of the figures by my brother my education came to an end. Instinctively I began to perform certain simple calculations. And, like all uneducated persons, I always calculate from left to right, instead of from right to left, beginning with the highest value instead of with the unit."

He himself, although perfectly conscious of the process through which his faculties work out the desired result, can not explain how he can arrive at that result so quickly. "It is there," he said, touching his head, "but the answer comes mechanically, without effort, without research, mechanically even."

"After a difficult calculation, do you experience any fatigue, M. Inaudi?" he was asked.

"Not the least in the world. I am quite unconscious of anything that is going on. Even the methods by which I arrive at the required result are so mechanically employed that it is simply like reading a newspaper." This indifference is proved by the fact that no interruption deranges M. Inaudi. He will listen and join in the conversation while continuing his unraveling of the problem. As an example of the rapidity of his power of calculation, it may be mentioned that it took him but twenty-three seconds to reckon the square of 5,892.

"When I take a pencil I work much slower than you would, and am not at all reliable. When I make a calculation mentally, the least error seems to strike my organ of hearing. I feel, if I can so express myself, the inaccuracy. When, on the other hand, I work with pen and paper, I might make several errors and should not discover them until I made the proof mentally."

This was naturally to be expected from one who frankly avowed that until a few years ago he was perfectly illiterate.

"I have no memory, however, for other things except figures," said M. Inaudi. "Nothing else seems to make any impression upon me. If I read anything, I forget it almost immediately. If anything is told to me, the result is the same. Few things interest me save numbers. In fact, I have no aptitude for anything else."