Thomas Fuller, the American slave was known as the “Mental Culculator” because of his ability to do extremely quick and complex mental calculations! When he was asked how many seconds a man had who was 70 years, 17 days and 12 hours old, he answered in a minute and a half, 2,210,500,800!
According to one account, “one of the men was working out the problems on paper, and informed Fuller that his answer was too high. Fuller hastily replied, “‘Top, massa, you forget de leap year.” When the leap year was added in, the sums matched!”
When some felt pity that such a mathematical genius had no education at all, he replied, “No, Massa, it is best I had no learning, for many learned men be great fools.”
Well, he had probably seen quite a couple of educated fools, not the least among those who made him a slave.
