2Q4* THE COMPUTING BOY. 



Observations of the first mathematicians in the country. I am aware, indeed, 



smorto^to that Mr# A ' refers t0 another memoir of M. Rallier, on prime 

 talents, and and composite numbers, and I regret, in common with most of 

 tli^^thod ^ our reac ' ers ' tnat ne n;,s not given us so-much as a single hint 

 of computing respecting the method employed in this second memoir, though 

 by Zerah Col- j le savs « j t ; s p ro bably the one pursued by the boy to find 

 prime numbers, and to resolve numbers into their factors." 

 Without knowing myself, however, what this method may be, 

 I cannot think that it has been adopted by the boy, for several 

 reasons ; first, because it has been known for nearly fifty years, 

 secondly, that none of the mathematicians who have seen the 

 boy (except Mr. A.) have considered any of the known methods 

 of operating with prime and composite numbers, as sufficient 

 to account for the rapidity with which the calculations have been 

 performed j and thirdly, that the method itself could iuver 

 have fallen into disrepute, but would have been adopted not 

 only by every mathematician, but by every teacher of arithme- 

 tic in the most obscure country villages, if it had been of such 

 inestimable utility as to have enabled boys of only six yjiars 

 of age to have performed such astonishing calculations . 



Again, Sir, Mr. A. made no new discovery when he found 

 that the boy, in extracting the square or cube root of any pro- 

 posed number, made use only of the two first and two last 

 figures. This curious and singular fact had been known for 

 many months to several eminent mathematicians who had 

 visited the boy, and who were soon convinced, from the quick- 

 ness and accuracy of his answers, and from the power which 

 he possessed of correcting himself whenever he committed 

 an error, that M.Rallier's method was not the one he employed, 

 even in the extraction of roots, much less in ascertaining the 

 factors of large numbers, which he does with a rapidity and 

 apparent facility, astonishing to those who have been long ac- 

 quainted with the method alluded to, and who, notwithstanding 

 their years of practice in abstruse calculations, find, that they 

 themselves cannot perform such operations, neither by that me- 

 thod, nor by any other yet made public ! What, then, shall 

 we think of Mr. A.'s claims to the discovery of the " modus 

 operandi ?" 



Mr. A. might have spared himself the trouble of suggesting 

 an alteration in the intermediate figures of any J erfet t 'e, 



h 



