GEORGE LANE: The Human Calculator

 

George Lane played at the recent Mind Sports Olympiad where he picked up two silver medals for poker, but that is not his forte.


George Lane: gamester, human calculator and author

George Lane has played at every single Mind Sports Olympiad except the first one at London’s Royal Festival Hall. George is a Londoner too, like me; awhile ago I ran into him at Trafalgar Square on New Year’s Eve. When I met him at the recent MSO where he was both competing and helping out, he told me his book on mental calculations has been translated into Italian. Poker may be more luck than skill, but with mental calculations, either you can do it or you can’t.

Although in recent years it has been dominated by Germany’s Gert Mittring – who won it again this year – George won the Mental Calculations in 1999, 2002, 2003 and 2008.

The original hardback edition of his book can be found on Amazon. He also does the odd presentation for schools and such. Not a bad idea considering that nowadays most of us – kids and adults alike – have got so used to using computers that we have forgotten how to use the one we were born with.

[The above article was published originally August 30, 2012 as George Lane, the Human Calculator with the photograph here. Re the last line, “how to use the one with which we were born” may be grammatically correct but doesn’t sound right to my ear.]


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