Shakuntala Devi: Why she kicks ass

• She is a mathematician.
• She is known as a ‘human computer’ and a ‘calculating prodigy’ for her extraordinary talent of solving complex mathematical calculations very quickly. 
• She competed with a computer to see who give the cube root of 188138517 faster, she won (1977). 
• At university of USA she was asked to give the 23rd root of 9167486769200391580986609275853801624831066801443086224071265164279346570408670965932792057674808067900227830163549248523803357453169351119035965775473400756818688305620821016129132845564895780158806771, which she answered in 50 seconds; It took a UNIVAC 1108 computer a full one minute to confirm that she was right after it was fed with 13000 instructions. 
• She demonstrated the multiplication of two 13-digit numbers (7,686,369,774,870 x 2,465,099,745,779) picked at random by the Computer Department of Imperial College, London. She answered the question correctly in 28 seconds. This event is mentioned on page 26 of the 1995 Guinness Book of Records.
• In 2006 she released a book called In the Wonderland of Numbers with Orient Paperbacks which talks about a girl Neha and her fascination for numbers. She has also previously released 9 other books (including Puzzles to Puzzle You, Figuring: The Joy of Numbers andSuper Memory: It Can Be Yours)