218: Scott Flansburg—The Human Calculator is on a Mission

The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe

Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 39.1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 September 2021

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Human Calculator, Scott Flansburg stops by to demonstrate his Guinness world-record abilities, introduce Mike to a better calendar, and explain why he is determined to uncover the real story of how basketball was invented.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey guys, it's Mike Rowe. This is the way I heard it. Episode number 218, and I call this one,
0:09.2	The Human Calculator is on a mission. Because he is. I just had, with my dear friend Chuck,
0:18.6	the most insane conversation, not the most insane conversation I've ever had because I've had some
0:25.2	crazy conversations with my old friend Scott Flansberg, the human calculator. But Chuck,
0:29.5	you have to admit that was a conversation for the books. It really was amazing. I can't imagine
0:34.7	how his mind works, but it works at a degree that I can't really
0:39.8	comprehend. Yeah, I mean, I've known that about him for a long time. We go back about 30 years or so.
0:47.7	We talk about the night we met in the middle of the night on QVC. we talk about Scott Flansberg's obsession with numbers
0:57.2	and his belief that he can unlock a human calculator in anybody's mind.
1:04.2	And he's been doing this all of his life.
1:07.9	You know, I didn't want to turn the whole conversation into a bunch of circus tricks, but I'm
1:12.3	glad we took a couple of minutes, Chuck, just to explain and demonstrate what he can do, because
1:17.6	it's still, to this day, it still freaks me out. Yeah, he did some stuff, which you'll hear
1:24.4	in a moment, where he just takes numbers and adds them quicker than I can
1:30.2	calculate them with a calculator.
1:32.6	And divides and subtracts.
1:34.7	And look, he holds Guinness world records in the wide world of numbers.
1:39.8	He's also on this mission to literally change the way we track time. He has developed an entirely new
1:47.3	calendar, super intuitive, 13, 28 day months with 0-0 being New Year's Day. And we talk about all
1:56.1	this stuff. But really, the reason I wanted to have this guy on is because he is somebody that I think
2:02.1	fans of this podcast are going to want to know.
2:05.6	His life's work has been that of being a human calculator and changing the way we teach math.
	...

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