Willis Nelson Dysart (March 15, 1923, in Omega, Georgia – November 8, 2011)The Mental Calculator's Handbook, Fountain and van Koningsveld, 2013, pages 476-483. was an American

mental calculator Human calculator is a term to describe a person with a prodigious ability in some area of mental calculation (such as adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing large numbers). The world's best mental calculators are invited every two ye ...

. His talent for arithmetic emerged at the age of three after his mother taught him to count. He quit school in the

third grade Third grade (also called grade three, equivalent to Year 4 in England) is a year of primary education in many countries. It is the third school year of primary school. Students are usually 8–9 years old. Examples of the American syllabus *I ...

(age 9) and pursued a career as a lightning calculator.Los Angeles Herald, December 27, 1964 In 1938

Robert Ripley LeRoy Robert Ripley (February 22, 1890 – May 27, 1949) was an American cartoonist, entrepreneur, and amateur anthropologist, who is known for creating the ''Ripley's Believe It or Not!'' newspaper panel series, television show, and radio show, ...

featured Dysart in his 'Believe It Or Not'

newspaper column A column is a recurring piece or article in a newspaper, magazine or other publication, where a writer expresses their own opinion in few columns allotted to them by the newspaper organisation. Columns are written by columnists. What differe ...

and introduced what would become Dysart's stage name - 'Willie the Wizard'. In 1940 Dysart was recruited by a local radio station to tally votes in the US

presidential election A presidential election is the election of any head of state whose official title is President. Elections by country Albania The president of Albania is elected by the Assembly of Albania who are elected by the Albanian public. Chile The pre ...

. Dysart would very quickly (much more quickly than rival

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radi ...

s aided by

calculating machine A mechanical calculator, or calculating machine, is a mechanical device used to perform the basic operations of arithmetic automatically, or (historically) a simulation such as an analog computer or a slide rule. Most mechanical calculators wer ...

s) give "the exact standing of any candidate on the board, including his current total, the percentage of votes counted at that point and the probable outcome of the contest on the basis of existing information". Not content with that, Dysart would provide a little entertainment by, for instance, asking for the birth dates of the candidates and immediately giving the years, months, hours, minutes and seconds they had lived to that moment. Dysart has given many live demonstrations of his skill at a range of venues. He has also appeared on numerous television shows, including I've Got a Secret,

You Asked For It ''You Asked for It'' is a human interest television show created and hosted by Art Baker. Initially titled ''The Art Baker Show'', the program originally aired on American television between 1950 and 1959. Later versions of the series were see ...

, The

Art Linkletter Arthur Gordon Linkletter (born Gordon Arthur Kelly or Arthur Gordon Kelly; sources differ; July 17, 1912 – May 26, 2010) was a Canadian-born American radio and television personality. He was the host of ''Art Linkletter's House Party, House Par ...

Show and The

Joe Pyne Joe Pyne (December 22, 1924 – March 23, 1970) was an American radio and television talk show host, who pioneered the confrontational style in which the host advocates a viewpoint and argues with guests and audience members. He was an influence ...

Show, which made him famous in the United States. He has also been the subject of psychological studies. Although excelling at all kinds of arithmetic, Dysart's most startling demonstrations have been in addition and multiplication. Multiplying a pair of three-digit numbers is for Dysart a trivial task, which is why he breaks larger numbers into groups of three digits before multiplying them (many of the multiplications reported to have been made by Dysart involve six or nine-digit numbers). In this respect Dysart is unique among the documented calculators, some of whom – most notably Dutchman Wim Klein – multiplied large numbers by breaking them up into groups of two-digit numbers but never three-digit numbers. It took Dysart less than 10 seconds to multiply a pair of nine-digit numbers.Star News, March 17, 1962 Dysart died on November 8, 2011, in

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, California.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dysart, Willis Mental calculators People from Tift County, Georgia People from Colquitt County, Georgia 1923 births 2011 deaths