The Man Who Typed to One Million
Les Stewart of Queensland, Australia began typing the numbers from one to a million — in words — in 1982. It took him 16 years, seven typewriters, 1000 ink ribbons, and 19,990 sheets of paper to finish. And he did it all with one finger. From Recordholders.org:
When asked why he has undertaken this time consuming and repetitious task, Les says that he has little else to do now that he has been classed as an invalid, and can no longer work. Besides that, Les enjoys typing and used to be a police typing instructor before his sickness which meant his withdrawal from the force. Typing an average three pages a day with one finger since April 1982, Les said his secret was to type for 20 minutes on the hour, every hour
Les is no newcomer to breaking records: Some years ago he broke the Australian Record of treading water, and then he went on to swim continuously for 30 hours, establishing another Australian record.
** This calls to mind the world’s longest diary.
April 14th, 2006 at 2:52 pm
Poor guy.
April 15th, 2006 at 4:13 am
I find it a little strange that a typing instructor does this with one finger!
Then again, I don’t think I’ve ever seen police type any other way!
April 15th, 2006 at 9:31 am
[...] From The Proceedings of the Athanasius Kircher Society: Les Stewart of Queensland, Australia began typing the numbers from one to a million — in words — in 1982. It took him 16 years, seven typewriters, 1000 ink ribbons, and 19,990 sheets of paper to finish. And he did it all with one finger. [...]
April 15th, 2006 at 7:03 pm
Announcement: I intend to type the complete Fibonacci series, in words. I am beginning now:
one, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty one
thirty four, fifty five, eighty nine, one hundred forty four, two hundred thirty three, three hundred seventy seven, six hundred ten, nine hundred eighty seven, one thousand five hundred ninety seven, two thousand five hundred eighty four, four thousand one hundred eighty one, six thousand seven hundred sixty five, ten thousand nine hundred forty six
and I continue on …
April 16th, 2006 at 8:16 pm
What a depressing story. I wonder what he plans to do now. Is it even worth living once you’ve accomplished something like that?
May 2nd, 2006 at 4:55 pm
Did anybody proof read that?
June 20th, 2006 at 7:04 pm
What do you think he did with the other forty minutes an hour?
August 18th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Perhaps he is typing with one finger as a consequence of what has rendered him an invalid. If something happened to the guy’s fingers and he was a typing instructor, that would explain why they retired him and he’s only using the one finger…
August 25th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
Exactly how could he possibly have found the time and patience?
October 30th, 2006 at 1:59 pm
How come he’s invalid and able to swim for 30 hours????
That’s fishy
November 27th, 2006 at 9:39 pm
Dang, man! Study ants or flatworms or something. Advance science, instead of this waste of time effort.
January 11th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
What’s with all the negativity.? It’s about damn time somebody typed to one million. Right on man!
January 16th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
Yeah - now we have proof that a million really does exist!
Sometimes I wonder about a billion…
August 25th, 2007 at 4:18 am
Too bad he never had the forsight to find sponsors for his work before he started at say $1 a line…