Student ciphers square roots in his head

A French computer science student can cipher the 13th root of a 200-digit number in his head -- in less than 9 minutes.

Twenty-four-year-old Alexis Lemaire has spent four years developing a secret matrix technique, memorizing thousands of inter-linked tables of numbers to aid his calculations, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

"It's just like learning your times tables really," he said. "But the numbers are bigger."

However, Lemaire has a new goal. He wants to learn 40 languages simultaneously or to become a "card sharp" at poker.

"It's all about thinking visually," he said. "I have a map or matrix in my head of thousands of tables that I have learned side by side. I can scroll through them and pick out the numbers I need."

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