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13-year-old Aaryan Shukla is a human calculator... 🧠
No, really!
The teen from Maharashtra, India, left a large audience speechless when he achieved a Guinness World Records title with his incredible maths skills.
On the set of our Italian TV series Lo Show Dei Record, Aaryan set the record for the fastest time to mentally add 50 5-digit numbers – 25.19 seconds.
That’s about 1 addition every HALF a second! 🤯
Can you think of some 5-digit numbers? Here are a few:
How long would it take you to add these 3 numbers? Give it a go! ⏱️
Okay, now... how long would it take to add these same numbers MENTALLY, without using any pen, paper, or electronic device?
Sounds pretty impossible, right?
Now think about adding 50 NUMBERS! 😨
I don't know about you, but I got a headache just thinking about it. 😆
But Aaryan is no ordinary person.
As he stood on stage looking at a large screen, all 50 numbers flashed before his eyes one after the other, so quickly that the average audience member couldn't even read and process each one before it disappeared and got replaced by the next number.
After the last one was shown, he just took a few seconds to finish his mental calculation before coming up with the correct answer in front of a stunned crowd. 👏🏽
So of course, we caught up with him backstage after the show, and got to know him better!
Aaryan explained how he discovered his unique talent:
“I started doing mental maths at the age of 6 years and then slowly, gradually I started […] to solve tougher problems. Then I started to go into competitions and slowly I became world champion.
“My favourite thing about mental maths is that I can represent my country at various stages. And secondly, it means that I could become a world champion at the age of 12 years!”
Indeed, Aaryan won the super prestigious Mental Calculation World Cup in 2022 in Paderborn, Germany, and is even one of the founding board members of the Global Mental Calculators Association (GMCA) whose mission is to promote mental mathematics all over the world! 🌎
Aaryan was thrilled to return home and share the news with his friends:
“They will be excited, they appreciate me a lot and, yeah, they will be happy.”
Best friends will always be happy for your success. ❤️
One might suppose that calculation is Aaryan’s only passion but, when it comes to school, maths is just one of his many favourite subjects: “I equally like […] history, physics, geography and science.”
And, even more surprisingly, the boy wonder finds the time to pursue other hobbies:
“The first one is to read books, […] mainly adventure or mystery.
“And second, I like to play cricket and watch it a lot. I love to collect information about cricket! Oh, and I also love watching football. I don’t play too much but still, I like to see the stats.”
How about you? What is your favourite school subject and do you have any similar hobbies?
Aaryan hasn’t decided what he wants to be when he grows up yet, but he knows it will be something related to maths. 🤓
Aaryan's magical journey shows that anything is possible when you put your mind to it (ha! get it?).
So what do YOU want to be when you grow up?
Congratulations, Aaryan, you are Officially Amazing! 🥳