Here’s a little honey I shot in my own kitchen. It involves fast reading, complete memory, handling of unbelievable number of permutations and combinations, and mathematical investigation of alternatives. You play solitaire, Ben?”
“Sure.”
“I want you to shuffle the cards thoroughly, then lay out a Canfield solitaire, dealing from left to right, then play it out, three cards at a time, going through the deck again and again, until you are stuck and can’t go any farther.”
“Okay. What’s the gag?”
“After you have shuffled and cut, I want you to riffle the cards through once, holding them up so that Joan gets a quick glimpse of the index on each card.
Then wait a moment.’ Silently he did what he had been asked to do. Joan checked him. “You’ll have to do it again, Ben. I saw only fifty-one cards.”
“Two of them must have stuck together. I’ll do it more carefully.” He repeated it.
“Fifty-two that time. That’s fine.”
“Are you ready, Joan?”
“Yes, Phil. Take it down; hearts to the six, diamonds to the four, spades to the deuce, no clubs.”
Coburn looked incredulous. “Do you mean that is the way this game is going to come out?”
“Try it and see.”
He dealt the cards out from left to right, then played the game out slowly. Joan stopped him at one point. “No, play the king of hearts’ stack into that space, rather than the king of spades.
The king of spades play would have gotten the ace of clubs out, but three less hearts would play out if you did so.” Coburn made no comment, but did as she told him to do. Twice more she stopped him and indicated a different choice of alternatives.
The game played out exactly as she had predicted.
Coburn ran his hand through his hair and stared at the cards. “Joan,” he said meekly, “does your head ever ache?”
“Not from doing that stuff. It doesn’t seem to be an effort at all.”
“You know,” put in Phil, seriously, “there isn’t any real reason why it should be a strain. So far as we know, thinking requires no expenditure of energy at all. A person ought to be able to think straight and accurately with no effort.
I’ve a notion that it is faulty thinking that makes headaches.”
“But how in the devil does she do it, Phil? It makes my head ache just to try to imagine the size of that problem, if it were worked out long hand by conventional mathematics.”
“I don’t know how she does it. Neither does she.”
“Then how did she learn to do it?”
“We’ll take that up later. First, I want to show you our piece de resistance.”
“I can’t take much more. I’m groggy now.”.”You’ll like this.”
“Wait a minute, Phil. I want to try one of my own. How fast can Joan read?”
“As fast as she can see.”
“Hmm — “. The doctor hauled a sheaf of typewritten pages out of his inside coat pocket. “I’ve got the second draft of a paper I’ve been working on. Let’s try Joan on a page of it. Okay, Joan?”
He separated an inner page from the rest and handed it to her. She glanced at it and handed it back at once. He looked puzzled and said: “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. Check me as I read back.” She started in a rapid singsong, “page four. — now according to Cunningham, fifth edition, page 547: “Another strand of fibres, videlicet, the fasciculus spinocerebellaris (posterior), prolonged upwards in the lateral fumiculus of the medulla spinallis, gradually leaves this portion of the medulla oblongata. This tract lies on the surface, and is — ”
“That’s enough, Joan, hold it. God knows how you did it, but you read and memorized that page of technical junk in a split second.” He grinned slyly. “But your pronunciation was a bit spotty. Grandfather Stonebender’s would have been perfect.”
“What can you expect? I don’t know what half of the words mean.”
“Joan, how did you learn to do all this stuff?”
“Truthfully, Doctor, I don’t know. It’s something like learning to ride a bicycle-you take one spill after another, then one day you get on and just ride away, easy as you please. And in a week you are riding without handle-bars and trying stunts. It’s been like that-I knew what I wanted to do, and one day I could. Come on, Phil’s getting impatient.”