Arthur Benjamin the methamagician

[cronxeh]

Ok I'll confess, I've seen this guy on the Comedy Central.. either Colbert nation or daily show-cant remember-does not matter. But he got me thinking, he was multiplying 3 digit numbers without even waiting for Jon to finish..

A little more digging uncovered this awesomeness:
http://www.ted.com/talks/arthur_benjamin_does_mathemagic.html

This guy is awesome. On par with a statement a la "To the last, I grapple with thee; from hell's heart, I stab at thee; for hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee." He looks like the devil of sexiness. The prince of darkness of algebra. Anyone know what his deal is? He is not a savant, which brings me to another conjecture.. perhaps savants are not that smart either?

 

[leroyjenkens]

He kinda explained how he did it at the end; replacing numbers with words which is easier to remember.
He did get one wrong though, someone gave him 722 to square and he said it's a harder one and said 513,284. The lady on stage verified it as correct, but it's not. It's 521,284.

 

[erok81]

Even with his explanation on the last one that was still amazing. It probably would have taken me that entire episode to figure out the last one.