You’re asked a math question you must solve entirely in your head. The answer is 2,396,232,838,850,303. What chance have you got of getting it right?

Alexis Lemaire with one of his little problems

Correct answer : zero.

Not, however, if you are Alexis Lemaire. He has broken the record for finding the 13th root of a 200-digit number. Basically, that looks like this :

85,877,066,894,718,045,602,549,144,850,158,599,
202,771,247,748,960,878,023,151,390,314,284,284,
465,842,798,373,290,242,826,571,823,153,045,030,
300,932,591,615,405,929,429,773,640,895,967,991,
430,381,763,526,613,357,308,674,592,650,724,521,
841,103,664,923,661,204,223.

Last December, at Oxford’s Museum of the History of Science Alexis broke his own record, reducing it to 77.99 seconds. Even with a calculator you wouldn’t beat Lemaire doing the calculation in his head.

How does he do it? “It is quite difficult. I did a lot of preparation for this. More than four years of work and a lot of training every day. A lot of memorizing. I need three things — calculating, memorizing and the third on mathematical skills. It is a lot of work and maybe a natural gift.”

One of the theories being put forward by researchers is that damage to one area of the brain creates compensation in another. Brain scientist Dr Allan Snyder has suggested that everyone may possess such abilities but be unable to access them.

The genius himself explains that what he does is to transform raw numbers into other structures so he can “see” the answer to the problem. “When I think of numbers sometimes I see a movie, sometimes sentences. I can translate the numbers into words. This is very important for me. The art is to convert memory chunks into some kind of structure.

“I see images, phrases, actions. It’s very tactile, sensitive. I have these associations between places and numbers. Some places are imaginary, I try to vary so I don’t confuse the numbers. It’s important to memorize. I have to be precise.”

Lemaire’s explanation is similar to that of British genius Daniel Tammet, who set the world record for reciting pi to more than 22,000 digits at the same museum in 2004. To him, he said, each number has a distinct colour and appearance, some beautiful, some not, with each complex calculation making up a landscape.

Now you know.

If you have trouble with math and numbers, you can blame your right parietal lobe.

People with dyscalculia have difficulty processing numbers. Now researchers can identify the cause of dyscalculia, which is said to affect 5% of the population.

Scientists have traced the roots of dyscalculia (difficulty with math) to malformations in the right parietal lobe of the brain.

Researchers using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), stimulated the brain just as subjects without dyscalculia were about to complete a maths task, comparing two digits. They had to decide which digit was numerically larger, 2 or 4, but the 2 was written in a larger font than the 4.

Researchers found that subjects with normal math ability displayed behaviour similar to those with dyscalculia when they TMS was used to disrupt neuronal activity in the right intraparietal sulcus.

University College, London - The Root of Dyscalculia Found

Today Fed-Ex delivered three copies of November’s issue of Capital Magazine, a glossy finance magazine for top leaders from the magazine’s head office in Dubai, AE. There was my feature story - on page 28 - titled, Keeping the Brain in Mind: Boosting Your Problem Solving Power. But I had to dip deeper than usual to get it there. A math minded readership takes math-related writing, and since we all possess logical math intelligence in some measure, it’s simply a matter of finding and using it.

When Capital’s senior editors asked me for a story about MITA programs and how they boost the brain for problem solving, I dipped into my rather lowly mathematical intelligence to tell a story that might work for people with a penchant for numbers. My story starts… “As strong companies vie for those hard-to-land places at the top, brain based problem solvers can compete with an impressive edge in spite of tough times.” Think my opener will pique curiosity about how to deliver remarkable results, against the backdrop of shifting horizons?

Not that I’m a numbers guru, but it’s fun to tell stories that draw from math parts of the brain, and remember … this intelligence includes logical sequences too. I started with the question, “How could I trigger interest about brain based practices, from readers who think logically or numerical?”

Corporate executives read this magazine for tools to help with the rapid changes that take place in banking, technology, human capital, risk management and, corporate finance. Look below at how numbers speak to show Capital’s estimated readership of 40,000, and you’ll see how math mixes into stories.

Readers, we’re told, include:

- President/Chairman/CEO/Board Members: 35 %
- CFO/VP finance/financial controller: 30 %
- Vice president/Senior managements: 20 %
- Consultants: 6 %
- Procurement/IT managers/Human resources managers: 9 %

Do you use numbers to add zip to your stories? Writers who say they have little logical-math intelligence can develop more through showing ideas in logical order or using numbers as I did here. Can you see how numbers and sequences give more vivid pictures that could easily be lost otherwise? Because math was taught with a narrow focus, that rarely related to real life problems, at times we lost it’s delightful flavors.

My article also drew from mathematical knowing in a sidebar list of eight kinds of intelligence that could solve barriers to productivity. I listed guidelines to show readers how to share something they figured out. And I challenged them to engage their math intelligence in new ways that would grow dendrite brain cell connections for profitability.

My story offered steps for good customer relations from the moment of meeting to closing a deal…. If you were to sequence an action plan for a staff get-together and list the ten tactics your golf club used to win… your story is math related. Simple as that.

Math mingles with life through stories much the way Syntagma owner, John Evans listed London Stock Exchange’s Excellent Results, through story at London Stock Exchange.

Or, look at the way Andrea Pawlsen over at Money Finesse, helped consumers to solve reliability problems for 2006 and 2007 cars, and you’ll see more math intelligence at its best, worked into stories.

Count how many times males and females speak on key issues, during a meeting and you have a story that invites a math response people will love. Still looking for a story topic?

Why not write about Bobbie Fisher’s tactics in a chess game and show how similar winning strategies could win a financial deal. Or look through this morning’s math news for a story waiting to be created. As in any good writing, have fun. Writing that activates your logical mathematical intelligence will play with logical order, organization … and numbers, for instance, … and your mathematically inclined readers will too! What’s your best math story?