Super Humans - Mahmoud Wael

Mahmoud Wael (born 1999), an Egyptian boy, At 14 years old he became one of the youngest people qualified to teach university-level graduates in the programming language C++ after completing the Cisco Certified Network Associate, Cisco Certified Network Professional and Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert certificates in the American University in Cairo. He was sponsored by Microsoft to complete a series of certificates in computer programming. At the age of 4 Mahmoud could multiply 3 digit by 3 digit numbers in few seconds, he scored 155 on the IQ test he took at 6 years old. Multiple universities in Egypt and abroad have contacted him for scholarship offers since he was 7.

I found here an interview with him, age 14, one of the few in English, although you can find more in Arabic.

Super Humans - Shakuntala Devi

    Shakuntala Devi (4 November 1929 – 21 April 2013) was an Indian writer and mental calculator, popularly known as the "human computer". A child prodigy, her talents eventually earned her a place in the 1982 edition of The Guinness Book of World Records. As a writer, Devi wrote a number of books, including novels as well as texts about mathematics, puzzles, and astrology. She also wrote what is considered the first study of homosexuality in India; it treated homosexuality in an understanding light and is considered pioneering. Shakuntala Devi was born in Bengaluru, India, to an orthodox Kannada Brahmin family. Her father rebelled against becoming a temple priest and instead joined a circus where he worked as a trapeze artist, lion tamer, tightrope walker and magician. He discovered his daughter's ability to memorize numbers while teaching her a card trick when she was about three years old. Her father left the circus and took her on road shows that displayed her ability at calculation. She did this without any formal education. By the age of six she demonstrated her calculation and memorization abilities at the University of Mysore. In 1944, Devi moved to London with her father. Devi traveled the world demonstrating her arithmetic talents, including a tour of Europe in 1950 and a performance in New York City in 1976. In 1988, she traveled to the US to have her abilities studied by Arthur Jensen, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Jensen tested her performance of several tasks, including the calculation of large numbers. Examples of the problems presented to Devi included calculating the cube root of 61,629,875 and the seventh root of 170,859,375. Jensen reported that Devi provided the solution to the aforementioned problems (395 and 15, respectively) before Jensen could copy them down in his notebook. Jensen published his findings in the academic journal Intelligence in 1990. In 1977, at Southern Methodist University, she was asked to give the 23rd root of a 201-digit number; she answered in 50 seconds.Her answer—546,372,891—was confirmed by calculations done at the US Bureau of Standards by the UNIVAC 1101 computer, for which a special program had to be written to perform such a large calculation. On 18 June 1980, she demonstrated the multiplication of two 13-digit numbers—7,686,369,774,870 × 2,465,099,745,779—picked at random by the Computer Department of Imperial College London. She correctly answered 18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730 in 28 seconds. This event is mentioned in the 1982 Guinness Book of Records. Writer Steven Smith states that the result is "so far superior to anything previously reported that it can only be described as unbelievable". She returned to India in the mid-1960s and married Paritosh Banerji, an officer of the Indian Administrative Service from Kolkata. They were divorced in 1979. In 1980, she contested in the Lok Sabha elections as an independent, from Bombay South and from Medak in Andhra Pradesh. In Medak she stood against Indira Gandhi, saying she wanted to "defend the people of Medak from being fooled by Mrs. Gandhi"; she stood ninth, with 6514 votes (1.47% of the votes). Devi returned to Bengaluru in the early 1980s. In addition to her work as a mental calculator, Devi was an astrologer and an author of several books, including cookbooks and novels.

Super Humans - Truman Henry Safford

Truman Henry Safford (6 January 1836 – 13 June 1901) was an American calculating prodigy. In later life he was an observatory director. Safford was born in Royalton, Vermont, on 6 January 1836. At an early age he attracted public attention by his remarkable calculation powers. At the age of nine, a local priest asked him to multiply 365,365,365,365,365,365 by itself. In less than a minute, Truman gave the correct answer of 133,491,850,208,566,925,016,658,299,941,583,225 with no paper. At around this age he also developed a new rule for calculating the moon's risings and settings, taking one-quarter of the time of the existing method. Unlike many other calculating prodigies, Safford did not give public exhibitions. He went to college and studied astronomy. He became the second director of the Hopkins Observatory at Williams College, the oldest extant astronomical observatory in the United States. Safford served as director of the Observatory until his death. In 1894, Safford had a stroke. He died on 13 June 1901 at 112 Broad Street in Newark, New Jersey where he was living with his son.

Super Humans - Gerald David "Jerry" Newport

   Gerald David "Jerry" Newport (born August 19, 1948) is an author and public speaker with Asperger syndrome whose life was the basis for the 2005 feature-length movie Mozart and the Whale. He is known for his frank advice and humor when giving presentations. A graduate of the University of Michigan with a B.A. in mathematics, he is also a savant with the ability to perform difficult mathematical calculations in his head. He has two elder brothers, John (born c. 1941) and James (Jim) (born c. 1945). In June 2010, Jerry Newport competed in the Mental Calculation World Cup in Magdeburg, Germany. He won four of ten events, a second and a third and the World Cup Trophy for "Most Versatile Calculator." On his 46th birthday, Jerry married Star Trek actress Mary Louise Meinel (born March 6, 1955), also a savant with Asperger Syndrome. While Jerry has advanced math skills, Mary is an artist and former music teacher. From previous relationships, she has two sons, Stephen and Peter, and two grandchildren. The couple lives in Arizona. They separated in 1997 and divorced in June 1999, though later reconciled and remarried on Valentine's Day 2002. Together, he and Mary released Autism-Aspergers & Sexuality: Puberty and Beyond on July 1, 2002 and Mozart and the Whale: An Asperger's Love Story on New Year's Day 2007.

Super Humans - Priyanshi Somani

   Priyanshi Somani (born 16 November 1998) is a mental calculator. She was the youngest participant of the Mental Calculation World Cup 2010 and won the overall title. She is the only participant who has done 100% accuracy in Addition, Multiplication, Square Root till date in all five Mental Calculation World Cups. Somani is the winner of "Pogo Amazing Kids Awards 2010" in genius category. Her name is also added in the Limca Book of World Records as well as the Guinness Book of World Records. Priyanshi Somani, daughter of businessman Satyen Somani and Anju Somani, started learning Mental Maths at the age of 6. She studied in Lourdes Convent High School of Surat. She was the youngest participant of the Mental Calculation World Cup 2010 and won the overall combination title held at the University of Magdeburg, Germany on 5–7 June 2010. Somani claimed the title among 37 competitors from 16 countries, after standing 1st in extracting square roots from 6 digit numbers up to 8 significant digits in 6:51 minutes, 2nd in addition [10 numbers of 10 digits] and multiplication [2 numbers of 8 digits]. She is the only participant who has performed with 100% accuracy in Addition, Multiplication, and Square Root to date in all four mental calculation world cups. Priyanshi also solved 10 assigned tasks of square root correctly in 6:28 minutes on June 7, 2010, during the World Cup. As a result, she won Memoriad Cup and qualified for the Memoriad World Mental Olympics competition held in Turkey 2012. Priyanshi has been named the Indian Ambassador for the prestigious World Maths Day 2011 event. On 3 January 2012, Priyanshi Somani became the new "World Record Holder" in "Mental Square Roots". By using Memoriad Competition software, she finished 10 tasks of 6 digit numbers in 2:43:05 minutes. All tasks were calculated correctly to 8 significant digits. In 2006, 2007 and 2008 she was the National Champion in abacus and mental arithmetic competition in India and in 2007 International Champion at Malaysia. She is the winner of Pogo Amazing Kids Awards 2010 in the genius category. Priyanshi was the Guest Of Honor in the 16th Mental Arithmetic International Competition on 28 November 2010 organized by UCMAS Global Education Group at Malaysia among 43 countries. Recently her name is featured on the Mind & Memory page of Guinness Book of World Records 2014. Priyanshi Somani received the Outstanding Delegate Award in the third annual conference of CheongShim International Academy Model United Nations, held on the 20th to the 21st of February 2012 in North Korea. An assistant professor of psychology at Stanford University has included Priyanshi in a research project.

Super Humans - Zerah Colburn

   Zerah Colburn (September 1, 1804 – March 2, 1839) was a child prodigy of the 19th century who gained fame as a mental calculator. Colburn was born in Cabot, Vermont, in 1804. He was thought to be intellectually disabled until the age of seven. However, after six weeks of schooling his father overheard him repeating his multiplication tables. His father wasn't sure whether or not he learned the tables from his older brothers and sisters, but he decided to test him further on his mathematical abilities and discovered that there was something special about his son when Zerah correctly multiplied 13 and 97. Colburn's abilities developed rapidly and he was soon able to solve such problems as the number of seconds in 2,000 years, the product of 12,225 and 1,223, or the square root of 1,449. When he was seven years old he took six seconds to give the numbers of hours in thirty-eight years, two months, and seven days. Zerah is reported to have been able to solve fairly complex problems. For example, the sixth Fermat number is 225+1 (or 232+1). The question is whether this number, 4,294,967,297, is prime or not. Zerah calculated in his head that it was not and has divisor 641. The other divisor is 6,700,417 and can easily be found using a calculator. His father capitalized on his boy's talents by taking Zerah around the country and eventually abroad, demonstrating the boy's exceptional abilities. The two left Vermont in the winter of 1810-11. Passing through Hanover, New Hampshire, John Wheelock, then president of Dartmouth College, offered to take upon himself the whole care and expense of his education, but his father rejected the offer. At Boston, the boy's performances attracted much attention. He was visited by Harvard College professors and eminent people from all professions, and the newspapers ran numerous articles concerning his powers of computation. After leaving Boston, his father exhibited Zerah for money throughout the middle and part of the southern states and, in January 1812, sailed with him for England. In September 1813 Colburn was being exhibited in Dublin. Colburn was pitted against the 8-year-old William Rowan Hamilton in a mental arithmetic contest, with Colburn emerging the clear victor. In reaction to his defeat, Hamilton dedicated less time to studying languages and more time to studying mathematics. After traveling over England, Scotland, and Ireland, they spent 18 months in Paris. Here Zerah was placed in the Lycée Napoléon, but was soon removed by his father, who, at length, in 1816, returned to England in the deepest penury. The Earl of Bristol soon became interested in the boy, and placed him in Westminster School, where he remained until 1819. In consequence of his father's refusal to comply with certain arrangements proposed by the earl, Zerah was removed from Westminster, and his father now proposed to Zerah that he should study to become an actor. Accordingly, he studied for this profession, and was for a few months under the tuition of Charles Kemble. His first appearance, however, satisfied both his instructor and himself that he was not adapted for the stage, and accordingly he accepted a situation as assistant in a school, and soon afterward commenced a school of his own. To this he added the performing of some astronomical calculations for Thomas Young, then secretary of the Board of Longitude. In 1824, on the death of his father, he was enabled by the Earl of Bristol and other friends to return to the United States. Though Zerah's schooling was rather irregular, he showed talent in languages. He went to Fairfield, New York, as assistant teacher of an academy; but not being pleased with his situation, he moved in March following to Burlington, Vermont, where he taught French, pursuing his studies at the same time in the University of Vermont. Toward the end of 1825 he connected himself with the Methodist Church and, after nine years of service as an itinerant preacher, he settled in Norwich, Vermont, in 1835, where he was soon after appointed professor of languages in Norwich University. In 1833 he published his autobiography. From this it appears that his faculty of computation left him about the time he reached adulthood. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 34 and was buried in Northfield’s Old Meeting House Cemetery.

Super Humans - John von Neumann

   John von Neumann (/vɒn ˈnɔɪmən/; Hungarian: Neumann János (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈnɒjmɒn ˈjaːnoʃ ˈlɒjoʃ]; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American pure and applied mathematician, physicist, inventor, and polymath. He made major contributions to a number of fields, including mathematics (foundations of mathematics, functional analysis, ergodic theory, geometry, topology, and numerical analysis), physics (quantum mechanics, hydrodynamics, fluid dynamics and quantum statistical mechanics), economics (game theory), computing (Von Neumann architecture, linear programming, self-replicating machines, stochastic computing), and statistics. He was a pioneer of the application of operator theory to quantum mechanics, in the development of functional analysis, a principal member of the Manhattan Project and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (as one of the few originally appointed), and a key figure in the development of game theory and the concepts of cellular automata, the universal constructor and the digital computer. He published 150 papers in his life; 60 in pure mathematics, 20 in physics, and 60 in applied mathematics. His last work, an unfinished manuscript written while in the hospital, was later published in book form as The Computer and the Brain. Von Neumann's mathematical analysis of the structure of self-replication preceded the discovery of the structure of DNA. In a short list of facts about his life he submitted to the National Academy of Sciences, he stated "The part of my work I consider most essential is that on quantum mechanics, which developed in Göttingen in 1926, and subsequently in Berlin in 1927–1929. Also, my work on various forms of operator theory, Berlin 1930 and Princeton 1935–1939; on the ergodic theorem, Princeton, 1931–1932." During World War II he worked on the Manhattan Project with J. Robert Oppenheimer and Edward Teller, developing the mathematical models behind the explosive lenses used in the implosion-type nuclear weapon. After the war, served on the General Advisory Committee of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, and later as one of its commissioners. He was a consultant to a number of organizations, including the United States Air Force, the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Along with theoretical physicist Edward Teller, mathematician Stanislaw Ulam, and others, he worked out key steps in the nuclear physics involved in thermonuclear reactions and the hydrogen bomb.

   Von Neumann was born Neumann János Lajos (in Hungarian the family name comes first), Hebrew name Yonah, in Budapest, Kingdom of Hungary, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to wealthy Jewish parents of the Haskalah. He was the eldest of three children. He had two younger brothers: Michael, born in 1907, and Nicholas, who was born in 1911. His father, Neumann Miksa (Max Neumann) was a banker, who held a doctorate in law. He had moved to Budapest from Pécs at the end of the 1880s. Miksa's father and grandfather were both born in Ond (now part of the town of Szerencs), Zemplén County, northern Hungary. John's mother was Kann Margit (Margaret Kann); her parents were Jakab Kann and Katalin Meisels. Three generations of the Kann family lived in spacious apartments above the Kann-Heller offices in Budapest; von Neumann's family occupied an 18-room apartment on the top floor. In 1913, his father was elevated to the nobility for his service to the Austro-Hungarian Empire by Emperor Franz Joseph. The Neumann family thus acquired the hereditary appellation Margittai, meaning of Marghita. The family had no connection with the town; the appellation was chosen in reference to Margaret, as was those chosen coat of arms depicting three marguerites. Neumann János became Margittai Neumann János (John Neumann of Marghita), which he later changed to the German Johann von Neumann. Formal schooling did not start in Hungary until the age of ten. Instead, governesses taught von Neumann, his brothers and his cousins. Max believed that knowledge of languages other than Hungarian was essential, so the children were tutored in English, French, German and Italian. By the age of 8, von Neumann was familiar with differential and integral calculus, but he was particularly interested in history, reading his way through Wilhelm Oncken's Allgemeine Geschichte in Einzeldarstellungen. A copy was contained in a private library Max purchased. One of the rooms in the apartment was converted into a library and reading room, with bookshelves from ceiling to floor. Von Neumann entered the Lutheran Fasori Evangelikus Gimnázium in 1911. This was one of the best schools in Budapest, part of a brilliant education system designed for the elite. Under the Hungarian system, children received all their education at the one gymnasium. Despite being run by the Lutheran Church, the majority of its pupils were Jewish. The school system produced a generation noted for intellectual achievement, that included Theodore von Kármán (b. 1881), George de Hevesy (b. 1885), Leó Szilárd (b. 1898), Eugene Wigner (b. 1902), Edward Teller (b. 1908), and Paul Erdős (b. 1913). Collectively, they were sometimes known as Martians. Wigner was a year ahead of von Neumann at the Lutheran School. When asked why the Hungary of his generation had produced so many geniuses, Wigner, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963, replied that von Neumann was the only genius. Although Max insisted von Neumann attend school at the grade level appropriate to his age, he agreed to hire private tutors to give him advanced instruction in those areas in which he had displayed an aptitude. At the age of 15, he began to study advanced calculus under the renowned analyst Gábor Szegő. On their first meeting, Szegő was so astounded with the boy's mathematical talent that he was brought to tears. Some of von Neumann's instant solutions to the problems in calculus posed by Szegő, sketched out on his father's stationery, are still on display at the von Neumann archive in Budapest. By the age of 19, von Neumann had published two major mathematical papers, the second of which gave the modern definition of ordinal numbers, which superseded Georg Cantor's definition. At the conclusion of his education at the gymnasium, von Neumann sat for and won the Eötvös Prize, a national prize for mathematics. Since there were few posts in Hungary for mathematicians, and those were not well-paid, his father wanted von Neumann to follow him into industry and therefore invest his time in a more financially useful endeavor than mathematics. So it was decided that the best career path was to become a chemical engineer. This was not something that von Neumann had much knowledge of, so it was arranged for him to take a two-year non-degree course in chemistry at the University of Berlin, after which he sat the entrance exam to the prestigious ETH Zurich, which he passed in September 1923. At the same time, von Neumann also entered Pázmány Péter University in Budapest, as a Ph.D. candidate in mathematics. For his thesis, he chose to produce an axiomatization of Cantor's set theory. He passed his final examinations for his Ph.D. soon after graduating from ETH Zurich in 1926. He then went to the University of Göttingen on a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to study mathematics under David Hilbert.