Futility Closet

George Parker Bidder was born with a surprising gift: He could do complex arithmetic in his head. His feats of calculation would earn for him a university education, a distinguished career in engineering, and fame throughout 19th-century England. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast, we'll describe his remarkable ability and the stunning displays he made with it. We'll also try to dodge some foul balls and puzzle over a leaky ship. Intro: John Clem joined the Union Army at age 10. Actress Tippi Hedren kept an African lion as a house pet in the 1970s. Sources for our feature on George Bidder: E.F. Clark, George Parker Bidder: The Calculating Boy, 1983. Steven Bradley Smith, The Great Mental Calculators: The Psychology, Methods, and Lives of Calculating Prodigies, Past and Present, 1983. Frank D. Mitchell, Mathematical Prodigies, 1907. Henry Budd Howell, A Foundational Study in the Pedagogy of Arithmetic, 1914. A.W. Skempton and Mike Chrimes, A Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers in Gre