For some, superintelligence is a dream, for others, a curse. This is the fate of Roman Semenovich Arrago, a native of the Russian Empire, whose real surname was Levitin. He was born in 1883 into a poor family of craftsmen in the city of Konotop, now located in the Sumy region of Ukraine. From childhood, Levitin showed exceptional abilities in mathematics. At 18, he began working as an accountant for a textile merchant. It was the owner of the firm who first noticed his intellectual talent: Roman Semenovich could easily multiply multi-digit numbers in his head and check up to 100 reports in an hour without errors. Such an employee was a true find for the merchant, and soon he was entrusted with the annual reports for tax purposes. However, Levitin did not like this job; he dreamed of enrolling in Sorbonne. The merchant, though with a heavy heart, allowed him to leave.

By that time, Roman Semenovich had independently mastered four foreign languages. In France, he began studying the basics of engineering and once greatly surprised an old professor. Levitin was given the task of designing a bridge; usually, calculations took a week, but he completed them in his head in a few minutes. The professor, astonished, said: "If you have such a mind, why do you need an engineering diploma? Go to the stage; it will bring you a hundred times more than any engineering position."

Thus began Levitin's tours. On stage, he calculated the cube root of a 12-digit number in seconds, multiplied and divided multi-digit numbers, and accurately determined what day of the week a certain date would fall on the following year. Soon, all of Europe was talking about the phenomenal mathematician. His victory over a mechanical competitor, the best calculating machine of that time, caused particular excitement. In calculating multi-digit numbers, Roman Semenovich outpaced the machine by 8 seconds.

Scientists became interested in this prodigy. The first to notice his unusual mental state were doctors. Levitin reported that he saw flying numbers around him, which had taste and color: for example, 7 was green, and 5 was red. Additionally, he often had nightmares, was very shy around women, and was afraid to talk to them; sometimes he would faint, yet he amazed everyone with his intellectual abilities. A precise diagnosis could never be established. Only disruptions in brain activity and high activity in the arterial area of the left temporal lobe, known as the zone of genius, were discovered. Roman Levitin continued to perform mathematical acts until his death in 1949. The mystery of the genius of the son of a poor craftsman remains unsolved.