gatiano:

Thomas Fuller 1710 - 1790 , African “slave” and mathematician.

Thomas Fuller was an African, shipped to America as a slave in 1724. He had remarkable powers of calculation, and late in his life was discovered by antislavery campaigners who used him as a demonstration that blacks are not mentally inferior to whites.

The place of his birth appears to have been between present day Liberia and Benin. Known as Negro Tom, we know that he was described as a very black man and also we know that he lived in Virginia after being brought to the United States as a slave.Certainly late in his life he was the property of Elixabeth Coxe of Alexandria.

Thomas Fuller, known as the Virginia Calculator, was stolen from his native Africa at the age of fourteen and sold to a planter. When he was about seventy years old, two gentlemen, natives of Pennsylvania, viz., William Hartshorne and Samuel Coates, men of probity and respectable characters, having heard, in traveling through the neighborhood in which the slave lived, of his extraordinary powers in arithmetic, sent for him and had their curiosity sufficiently gratified by the answers which he gave to the following questions: First, Upon being asked how many seconds there were in a year and a half, he answered in about two minutes, 47 304 000. Second: On being asked how many seconds a man has lived who is 70 years, 17 days and 12 hours old, he answered in a minute and a half 2 210 500 800. One of the gentlemen who employed himself with his pen in making these calculations told him he was wrong, and the sum was not so great as he had said - upon which the old man hastily replied: stop, master, you forget the leap year. On adding the amount of the seconds of the leap years the amount of the whole in both their sums agreed exactly.

Another question was asked and satisfactorily answered. Before two other gentlemen he gave the amount of nine figures multiplied by nine. … In 1790 he died at the age of 80 years, having never learned to read or write, in spite of his extraordinary power of calculation.

Present day thinking is that Fuller learned to calculate in Africa before he was brought to the United States as a slave. Supporting evidence for this comes from a passage written by Thomas Clarkson in 1788 describing the purchase of African slaves: “It is astonishing with what facility the African brokers reckon up the exchange of European goods for slaves. One of these brokers has ten slaves to sell , and for each of these he demands ten different articles. He reduces them immediately by the head to bars, coppers, ounces… and immediately strikes the balance. The European, on the other hand, takes his pen, and with great deliberation, and with all the advantage of arithmetic and letters, begin to estimate also. He is so unfortunate, as to make a mistake: but he no sooner errs, than he is detected by this man of inferior capacity, whom he can neither deceive in the name or quality of his goods, nor in the balance of his account.”

Despite Fuller’s calculating abilities he was never taught to read or write and again this is evidence that he did not learn to calculate while in the United States. When someone who had witnessed his calculating abilities remarked that it was a pity he had not been educated, Fuller replied: ‘It is best I got no learning; for many learned men be great fools.’ He died on 1790 in Alexandria, Virginia, USA.

Nice piece of history but how does this translate into development of AFRICANs ....the present day Africans cannot boast of the kind of man , even though we hold 64 percent of the earth resources ...maybe evolution has wiped out the types of thomas fuller ..you hear this story you wonder what happen to us ...we cannot even rule ourselves probably ...even the place the white men gave black peole in usa and uk , we cannot even hold on to it ...some thing has really gone wrong with along the way ..or may be we are de evolving ..the only thing we are good at now , music and church planting

Networkingprof: You are a success at wat you hate most, let the talk shift out of your realities, then you will be a miserable cretin. Enjoy your psycophatic paradise

I do not give a damn what you say!

I want reality not cock and bullshits. I do not live my life on the false line. I am just thoroughly disappointed. I am not at home in my own home!

ooshinibos:
Please tell them ...maybe we were once smart and intelligent , but today i dont see any evidence , we are one of the wickedest and brutal race today ..and you can see the evidence in the way we govern ourselves

Is this what you tell people about your place of origin? Am very sure your place is hell sorrounded by heaven. As to intelligent, you are a proof of wat you r saying.

Hmmmmm!
Quite incredible, but


For a man who purportedly had no formal education, am wondering how he came to know about the leap year

good to see that the black man is learning that he didn't fall from trees like the forking white CRACKER wants us to belive.


Same way they would never admit that the one of the greatest and influential civilisations ever witnessed on planet earth-EGYPT(the land of HAM)-was black.

Mo'fuckers

sexzskil:
I do not give a damn what you say!

I want reality not cock and bullshits. I do not live my life on the false line. I am just thoroughly disappointed. I am not at home in my own home!

Great feats takes time, where light once was can be taken over by darkness. That does not mean sun's never gonna shine there again. No need get mad at light or darkness cos a new day will eventuallz come. Can you wait? Take a chill verve here www.netmax.vemma.com, and dont worry, I will pay 4 you, just let go of your fuss.

Networkingprof: Great feats takes time, where light once was can be taken over by darkness. That does not mean sun's never gonna shine there again. No need get mad at light or darkness cos a new day will eventuallz come. Can you wait? Take a chill verve here www.netmax.vemma.com, and dont worry, I will pay 4 you, just let go of your fuss.

How does this work pls?

No, you are wrong, they are always present, ever present and even omni present. and i'm glad to let you know that you are one of those superb and super man (if you are black), what you need is just seeing and knowing yourself for who you/we really are. GOD, the supreme being. he is not a spirit that you can't see or if you see that you/we will die, this are all lies coined by the whiteman to keep us into the knowledge that in reality nothing will come to get us up upright. GOD does not love everybody, if he did he won't have destroyed sodom and gomorah or the land where Noah resided. why this religion? no it is not religion. the nature of the blackman is he sees everything as one, so mathematics, languages, dialects, chemistry, astrology, astronomy, physics, cultures, and religion, we see them all as one. It is the whiteman's nature to divide things, he divides, he was made by a means of division, everything he sees, he divides and causes confusion. GOD is a SUPREME MAN (means he has the best knowledge of the entire universe, his wisdom is best, all is best about him) and He's black (how can he not, if he was self made from the darkness of the universe). if He is black, why are black people suffering? We used to know GOD, we walked, ate, joked, played, studied, and did almost everything together with His permission. They one day, we just decided to do away with his permission (which is deviation or rebel against GOD), so we had to be punished to return us to GOD. Did we fall immidiately? no we lived every well for 66 trillion years, but as everyday goes we digressed, and spiralled downwards till we lost our minds, we went into idolatry (cos we forgot GOD), we began going naked till we completely lost it and then one of us (blackman) and is group made the whiteman and was given the knowledge to rule the black and darker nation for 6000 years. their rule will end when GOD makes himself know, their rule ended 1914. google and study history for yourself since 1914. that began their fall, they are still falling. GOD has made himself known, and it requires us a Black people raising up to ourselves again, if not, its death.

ooshinibos:



Nice piece of history but how does this translate into development of AFRICANs ....the present day Africans cannot boast of the kind of man , even though we hold 64 percent of the earth resources ...maybe evolution has wiped out the types of thomas fuller ..you hear this story you wonder what happen to us ...we cannot even rule ourselves probably ...even the place the white men gave black peole in usa and uk , we cannot even hold on to it ...some thing has really gone wrong with along the way ..or may be we are de evolving ..the only thing we are good at now , music and church planting

FemiAdenekan post=/post/26820378:
How do we even know if this is true? Someone could have simply cooked this up. Or that was probably what the Slaveman was good at which his masters wanted to show off. Its not a bad hype tho.

You are unbelievable.

sexzskil post=/post/26829173:

How does this work pls?

It is an online office of Vemma, a nutriceutical drink, meaning,it has to do with wellness. Vemma is a powerful antioxidant and its an acronym for vitamins, essential minerals, mangosteen and aloe.

Its one of the latest business in town, and you know geeks go for whatever is fresh and profitable. you can get across to me if you want some more details, its free if I am to register you.

endwef@yahoo.com

olayanju22 post=/post/26820562:



Guy,our thots are alike,that's the first thing that came to my mind.

Its always good to research first before you fly to conclude.
http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/special/fuller_thomas_1710-1790.html
Dats from the State University of New York Buffalo campus

its a pity many of our engineering graduates still wont be able to show working on how have 47,304,000 seconds in 1 year and a half.

the likes of seun osewa "be great fools" for they have learnt so much and said there's no God

LMAyedun post=/post/26820360:
Fuller replied: ‘It is best I got no learning; for many learned men be great fools.’
Words!!

great fool

FemiAdenekan post=/post/26820378:
How do we even know if this is true? Someone could have simply cooked this up. Or that was probably what the Slaveman was good at which his masters wanted to show off. Its not a bad hype tho.

LMAyedun post=/post/26820360:
Fuller replied: ‘It is best I got no learning; for many learned men be great fools.’
Words!!

Weird: u've learned wise words from an illiterate!!!.... weird again

creativeguru:

Seems you're indirectly saying the same thing with me. The emphasis is not on the westerners or the slave trade. It is upon Nigeria and other African countries to collectively have a sincere development plan and support it creating enabling environment without individual selfish interested . Japan, China, Singapore did this.

Our politicians must turn a new leaf, else we'll continue to move in reverse direction. If you and I develop a brilliant technology today in Nigeria, there won't be any remarkable impact because the Nigerian system is not built to support such intellectual breakthrough in earnest. Many factors will frustrate you and eventually rely on western world to gain relevance.

I agree with your POV, good points, well said.

Very very

Pavore9: Fascinating.

WORD.

Btw happy birthday dear. Longevity and prosperity

Ishilove: This is for those blaming the whiteman for our present woes. Africans were fully involved in slavery, often leading raiding expeditions into villages and carting away their brothers and sisters to sell to the white slavers and domestic slavery.

Thomas Fuller was a genius whose ingenuity was sacrificed on the altar of a few coppers. Africans: We are our own worst enemy.

cococandy: WORD.

Btw happy birthday dear. Longevity and prosperity

Thanks The Coco

YOU ARE A BIG LIAR. THOMAS FULLER WAS NOT A BLACK MAN NEITHER WAS HE A MATHEMATICAN. HE WAS AN ENGLISH CHURCH MAN AND A HISTORIAN. . SORRY YOU ARE A BIG LIAR. THOMAS FULLER WAS NOT A BLACK MAN NEITHER WAS HE A MATHEMATICAN. HE WAS AN ENGLISH CHURCH MAN AND A HISTORIAN. . SORRY

Fuller replied: ‘It is best I got
no learning; for many learned men be great fools.’

So touching#

good, i like that you are conversant with google, but not with history and facts. the so called slaves or so called negroes never new their names, they were completely lost. like a man or person brands his horses or other animals, so was the slaves (our brothers, our fathers, grand fathers and their fathers were branded as an animal. THUS THEY (THE SO CALLED NEGROES) WERE BRANDED WITH THE NAMES OF THEIR ENSLAVERS OR SLAVEMASTER).

So when you hear a blackman bearing malkulkin jack, or tony harrison, or magregor telrone, or salvadore, or da-silva amongst multitude, you should know that, that are the enslavers' name. and as long as one bears those names, then the slave mentality is still bound on that person. you can't find a korean or arab or indian (most) bear those names.

Smallville10: YOU ARE A BIG LIAR. THOMAS FULLER WAS NOT A BLACK MAN NEITHER WAS HE A MATHEMATICAN. HE WAS AN ENGLISH CHURCH MAN AND A HISTORIAN. . SORRY YOU ARE A BIG LIAR. THOMAS FULLER WAS NOT A BLACK MAN NEITHER WAS HE A MATHEMATICAN. HE WAS AN ENGLISH CHURCH MAN AND A HISTORIAN. . SORRY

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Fuller_%28mental_calculator%29

Smallville10: YOU ARE A BIG LIAR. THOMAS FULLER WAS NOT A BLACK MAN NEITHER WAS HE A MATHEMATICAN. HE WAS AN ENGLISH CHURCH MAN AND A HISTORIAN. . SORRY YOU ARE A BIG LIAR. THOMAS FULLER WAS NOT A BLACK MAN NEITHER WAS HE A MATHEMATICAN. HE WAS AN ENGLISH CHURCH MAN AND A HISTORIAN. . SORRY

gatiano: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Fuller_%28mental_calculator%29

. SORRY ABOUT THAT I GUESS WE HAVE TWO THOMAS FULLER THEN. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Muller

yes, even more, all or most slavers. thanks for the apology.

Smallville10: . SORRY ABOUT THAT I GUESS WE HAVE TWO THOMAS FULLER THEN. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Muller

gatiano: yes, even more, all or most slavers. thanks for the apology.

gatiano: yes, even more, all or most slavers. thanks for the apology.

johnjay4u2u: the last quote got me thinking. Africa's main problem has been selfishness. Our kings traded other people's sons and daughters and hid theirs. This era, politicians loot money meant for all for their families.
It's a pity we still hate ourselves.
If two men(a black and a white who look alike) are dressed the same way, Africans will reflexly prefer the white.
''Emancipate yourself from mental slavery''- Bob Marley

Got the bronze. TTC. I'm getting there.

Funny these "selfish" kings still protected you from invaders. And how is it selfish to rid the kingdom of felons.

This is an excellent example of pre-colonial ingenuity of African kingdoms, producing mathematicians the continent over since ancient times. No wonder they were so advanced.

benELOHIM7: great fool

Greater fool.

kobonaire:
when you stop worrying about which race is 'superior' and instead apply yourself to be the best you can be regardless of your skin colour, ethnicity, tribe etc then you can truly achieve greatness.
Stop blaming others for your failures.

This is coming from a person that blames Ghana for his and his country's failure?

Dumb person!

Sagamite:


This is coming from a person that blames Ghana for his and his country's failure?

Dumb person!

there is this dog that always chases my shadow on NL .... if I even fart he will be wagging his tail, sniffing around and barking in excited anticipation of an encore.....his owner really needs to leash him

God I need that kind of brain.