Zerah Colburn: Entertaining Calculations One of the first lightning calculators to capitalize on his talent was Zerah Colburn (1804–1839), an American farmer’s son from Vermont who learned the multiplication tables up to 100 before he could even read or write. By the age of six, young Zerah’s father took him on the road, where his performances generated enough income to send him to school in Paris and London. By age eight, he was internationally famous, performing lightning calculations in England, and was described in the Annual Register as “the most singular phenomenon in the history of the human mind that perhaps ever existed.” No less than Michael Faraday and Samuel Morse admired him. No matter where he went, Colburn met all challengers with speed and precision. He tells us in his autobiography of one set of problems he was given in New Hampshire in June 1811: “How many days and hours since the Christian Era commenced, 1811 years ago? Answered in twenty seconds: 661,015 days, 15,864,360 hours. How many seconds in eleven years? Answered in four seconds: 346,896,000.” As is often the case with lightning calculators, interest in Colburn’s amazing skills diminished over time, and by the age of twenty he had returned to America and become a Methodist preacher. He died at the youthful age of thirty-five. In summarizing his skills as a lightning calculator, and the advantage such an ability affords, Colburn reflected, “True, the method requires a much larger number of figures than the common rule, but it will be remembered that pen, ink, and paper cost Zerah very little when engaged in a sum.” Source: SECRETS OF MENTAL MATH by Arthur Benjamin and Michael Shermer