This ‘human calculator’ could probably do mental maths quicker than you could type it into your calculator. 🤪
Aaryan Shukla, a 14-year-old genius from Maharashtra, India, wowed a large audience when he set the record for the fastest time to mentally add 50 5-digit numbers on the set of our Italian TV series Lo Show Dei Record.
He did that in just 25.19 seconds – so approximately one addition every half a second! 🤯
Do you like maths? What’s your favourite school subject?
So that was about a year ago and, since then, Aaryan has been practising, competing and pushing his limits every day…
Recently, we invited him to Dubai to take on some of the toughest mental calculation world records EVER attempted.
In just one day, he broke 6 records:
- Fastest time to mentally add 100 4-digit numbers - 30.9 sec
- Fastest time to mentally add 200 4-digit numbers - 1 min 9.68 sec
- Fastest time to mentally add 50 5-digit numbers - 18.71 sec
- Fastest time to mentally divide a 20-digit number by a 10-digit number (set of 10) - 5 min 42 sec
- Fastest time to mentally multiply 10 sets of 2 5-digit numbers - 51.69 sec
- Fastest time to mentally multiply 10 sets of 2 8-digit numbers - 2 min 35.41 sec
Isn’t he incredible?!
We also sat down for a chat with him and his super proud mum and dad.
When we asked him about his daily routine, Aaryan said:
“Daily practice is one of the important aspects to prepare for competitions, […] so I practise for about 5-6 hours daily.”
Hey, no one said that being a record breaker was easy! 🙄
As a mental calculator who performs ‘impossible’ sums super-fast, Aaryan often tries to explain what happens in his head during those moments…
“A lot of things in mental calculations happen in a flash of a second, so I cannot say what happens inside my head, […] I just do it naturally. Basically, it’s so fast that you can’t think, you just need to do the calculations.”
Even though daily practice, on top of school and homework, keeps him quite busy, Aaryan thinks that “[in order] to keep the balance, relaxing is important.
“Yoga helps me to keep calm and focused.”
What do you like to do to relax?
Aaryan is a maths genius but, in many other ways, he’s a normal kid just like you!
He enjoys reading books, particularly adventure and mystery ones, playing video games and cricket…
“I also love travelling and due to the mental maths […] I travel to many countries!”
Do you have any of the same hobbies? 🤔
His parents discovered his talent when he was little.
Aaryan’s mum told us: “Since childhood, he was very good […] with numbers. He enjoyed studying and playing with numbers.
“At the age of 6 he started the practice of mental calculation, and he was very good, so we started doing some research on this.
“ […] At the age of 8 we went for an international competition and he won medals and trophies, which were great achievements.”
Since then, Aaryan has gone on to become a world champion, and is even one of the founding board members of the Global Mental Calculators Association (GMCA). 🤓
Aaryan’s dad told us: “[…] In the last eight years of his journey he has achieved so much, […] so I think he’s not only hardworking and talented, but he’s also gifted by the destiny to learn so many things at such a young age.
“He’s enjoying his journey, that is for sure.”
What do you think is your greatest talent? Don’t worry if you haven’t found it yet, we all have one – you just need to start noticing the things you’re naturally good at. 🤗
Surprisingly, Aaryan’s superpower doesn’t run in the family.
His dad confirmed: “We are a normal family. Aaryan is a one in a billion kind of person, but I don’t think that we are a family of mental calculators.”
The boy wonder is just at the start of his amazing journey, but he already has SO MUCH to be proud of:
“I feel great. I’m proud that I’m Officially Amazing. [This] is a dream for me!”
And we are proud of you, Aaryan! 🥳
