A small girl with beribboned braids was asked to find the solution of 735352314 times 11. She came up with the correct answer — 8088875454 — in less time than you can say the multiplication table. A thin, studious-looking boy wearing silver-rimmed spectacles was told to multiply 5132437201 times 452736502785. He blitzed through the problem, computing the answer-2323641669144374104785-in seventy seconds.
— Anne Cutler, Extract from the foreword from Trachtenberg Speed System of Basic Mathematics, translated and adapted by Anne Cutler and Rudolph McShane
