FRENCH "mathlete" Alexis Lemaire has showed off his rare mental agility, claiming a new world record after working out in his head the 13th root of a random 200-digit number in just 72.4 seconds. Mr Lemaire, a 27-year-old doctoral student in artificial intelligence from Reims, near Paris, sat at a laptop computer that randomly selected the figure and displayed it on the screen. The number was so long it ran over 17 lines. Mr Lemaire, who doesn't consider himself a nerd or a geek, then took just over a minute to identify two quadrillion, 397 trillion, 207 billion, 667 million, 966 thousand, 701 as the 13th root. In other words, the number multiplied by itself 13 times produces the 200 digit number originally generated by the computer.
"The first digit is very easy, the last digit is very easy, but the inside numbers are extremely difficult,'' the mental gymnast said after the performance at New York's Hall of Science.
