Held every two years, the world cup unites the world's best arithmeticians who compete in addition, multiplication, square roots and other categories.
This year's overall winner was Naofumi Ogasawara, a 22-year-old abacus instructor from Japan.
... Ogasawara, who was competing for the first time, blew apart the field. He won the overall title even though he scored zero in one of the main categories – that of "calendar calculation", in which you are presented with a list of dates from 1600 to 2100 and given 60 seconds to name the day of the week for as many of them as possible. This category was won by Myagmarsuren Tuuruul from Mongolia, who managed 57 correct answers.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
World Class Obsession
Japanese abacus teacher wins Mental Calculation World Cup
