APRIL 7th - Hell of a Party Trick



On this day in 1981, Wim Klein extracted the 13th root of a 100 + digit in a record 1 minute and 28.8 seconds. I don’t even know what that means beside the facts that Wim Klein had an awesome name and was basically Charlie Babbitt minus the autism. The dude was a human calculator. Very impressive little skill to have. At the very least it would make tipping at restaurants a cinch to figure out. Splitting up the bill too. Put your phone calculators away ladies and gentlemen, Wim has got this on lock. I bet Wim would just laugh when teachers told him he could use a TI-86 for the math section--if there had been TI-86s when Wim was a school boy. Truthfully, I’m not sure that it is the most useful skill in the world, and being an English major and allergic to prolonged contact with numbers I can’t do the extensive research into the subject that I would usually do without my head throbbing in pain. If Wim’s talent extended beyond just calculations to theoretical means, like good Will Hunting, then he’d be all Field’s Medal worthy. Might have created some obscure algorithm that makes it possible for Netflix to stream movies. Who knows? Whatever the case may be, finding the 19th of 133 digit number in 1 minute and 43 seconds is a hell of a party trick.

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