Meet Priyanshi Somani, Human Calculator Who Broke World Records At 11 Years Old

In our school days, one of the most challenging subjects that we had to deal with was mathematics (at least for me it was). What started as basic addition, subtraction and multiplication advanced to complicated equations bringing in geometry and algebra that truly screwed with our minds.

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While many (including me) were mostly clueless about what was happening, there were some who truly excelled at it. And then there were some, some really rare individuals that pushed the pace of calculation and accuracy to boundaries that didn¡¯t seem humanly possible. We¡¯re talking about one such mathematics legend, who at an age when kids are engrossed in playing, managed to win a world championship in mathematical calculation.

Meet Priyanshi Somani -- the winner of Mental Calculation World Cup in the year 2010. She set a new world record at mental square roots in the process.

Introduction to mental maths at the age of 6

She was born in the year 1998 in the city of Surat, Gujarat. Her parents put her in mental mathematics classes when she was just six years old. To the uninitiated, mental maths is a technique of solving mathematics in the mind, without requiring pen and paper. Mental math is also helpful in making kids understand math concepts better. Moreover, practising mental math regularly helps kids improve their number sense.

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Winning awards

In the year 2006, when she was around seven years old, just a year after learning mental maths, she became the National champion in abacus and mental arithmetic competition in India. By 2007, she went international by becoming a champion in Abacus in 2007 at the World Competition held in Malaysia.

At the 2010 world cup, she won first place for extracting square roots from 6 digit numbers up to 8 significant digits in just 6:51 minutes. She was awarded the second place for addition (10 numbers of 10 digits) and multiplication (2 numbers of 8 digits). Priyanshi also solved 10 assigned tasks of square root correctly in 6:28 minutes, breaking all records along the way.

In 2012, she made the Memoriad Cup the next target. At this event, Priyanshi Somani became the new world record holder in Mental Square Roots, finishing 10 tasks of 6 digit numbers in 2:43:05 minutes. She accurately calculated all given objectives to 8 significant digits. This was the final competition she participated in as she quit her career in mental mathematics in 2012.

What is Priyanshi doing today?

Today, at the age of 21 years, Priyanshi isn¡¯t in the field of mathematics, but in fact, she has developed interest in theatre as she is studying for her graduation. In a recent interview with World Mental Calculation, she revealed that she doesn¡¯t have anything planned, career wise and that her free mind helps her stay creative.

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The science behind prodigy brains

Priyanshi isn¡¯t the only child prodigy whose brain is able to process things in an instant that can take a while longer for regular individuals (for some, even longer). However, many wonder how it is specific only to some people. There are several factors contributing to this.

Environmental influence

A Scientific American article points out sayings of UK-based psychologist Michael Howe who states that dedication and energy from parent¡¯s part is instrumental in making any child a prodigy and if you see existing prodigies and about their life, it is their parents who understand their talent at an early age and nurture them, train them to help them get perfect at it -- whether it was Tiger Wood whose father introduced him to golf since the age of 2, or legendary composer Mozart, whose father, according to biographies, quit his own music career to support him.

Even in Priyanshi¡¯s case, her parents, Satyen and Anju Somani saw her talent at an early age and signed her up for mental mathematics classes that brought her the aforementioned rewards.

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Genetic influence

Another study gives us a slightly different perspective. Conducted by psychologist Joanne Ruthsatz and her colleagues, they administered a standardized test of intelligence to 18 prodigies in the fields of music arts and mathematics. These kids ranged from IQs 100 (normal) to 147 and above (unique). On average the score was 140 and all of them performed really well.

They tested an individual's working memory -- a cognitive system that¡¯s known to conduct complex mental operations -- like remembering complex processes of a task or even basic day-to-day calculations. They tested this by giving them a series of number to remember and asking them to recall the number backwards.

Researchers found that individuals in the study differed in the capacity of their working memory -- some had larger working memory some not so much. They found that this variance is majorly influenced due to genetics.

In conclusion, these findings only reveal the plethora of factors that make a kid special in a particular field, factors like genetic influence as well as the environment the child is in.