Mathemagician Video

[jlw]

One of the three-digit numbers from the audience that he squared, 457, was 205849, but every calculator I try it on gets 208849. Perhaps he has a couple segments burnt out in that digit... A minute later, 722 squared is 513284, whereas I get 521284--more faulty segments? Oddly enough, the volunteers onstage with calculators "confirmed" his results. Peer pressure?

Later, when he squares a five-digit number and shows us the process, it suggests how he could have made the above errors.

Then again, in at least one of my HP calculator manuals, is the story of Truman Henry Safford, a 10-year-old child prodigy asked to square 365,365,365,365,365,365. A parting shot claimed that no calculator ever made, even theirs, could do that.