Culture and Society
PUBLISHED
His name is Aaryan Shukla, but he’s better known as the “Human Calculator Kid”. Staying true to his nickname, this 14-year-old prodigy from India has just smashed six world records in the realm of ultra-quick arithmetic.
Earlier this month, Guinness World Records announced that Shukla had recently broken several world records that were related to speedy mental maths:
- Fastest time to mentally add 100 four-digit numbers: 30.9 seconds
- Fastest time to mentally add 200 four-digit numbers: 1 minute 9.68 seconds
- Fastest time to mentally add 50 five-digit numbers: 18.71 seconds
- Fastest time to mentally divide a 20-digit number by a ten-digit number (set of ten): 5 minutes 42 seconds
- Fastest time to mentally multiply two five-digit numbers (set of ten): 51.69 seconds
- Fastest time to mentally multiply two eight-digit numbers (set of ten): 2 minutes 35.41 seconds.
If you want to know the secret to this calculating wizardry, Shukla puts his abilities down to daily practice. He also relaxes with Sahaja Yoga meditation, which he credits for keeping his mind clear and calm.
“A lot of things in mental calculations happen in a flash of a second, so I cannot say what happens inside my head, […] I just do it naturally. Basically, it’s so fast that you can’t think, you just need to do the calculations,” he said in a statement.
While his parents suggest that inherited ability isn’t a factor in his mental mastery, his potential was seemingly apparent from an early age.
“We are a normal family. Aaryan is a one in a billion kind of person, but I don’t think that we are a family of mental calculators,” explained his father.
“Since childhood, he was very good […] with numbers. He enjoyed studying and playing with numbers. At the age of six he started the practice of mental calculation, and he was very good, so we started doing some research on this,” his mother commented.
Upon realizing his incredible abilities, Shukla has traveled the world and won numerous international competitions. He’s since gone on to become a world champion and a founding board member of the Global Mental Calculators Association.
In the future, Shakla hopes to use his talent to pursue further education in mathematics or aerospace engineering. For now, he’s making the most of his success.
“In the last eight years of his journey he has achieved so much, [...] so I think he’s not only hardworking and talented, but he’s also gifted by the destiny to learn so many things at such a young age,” his dad added.
“He’s enjoying his journey, that is for sure.”
