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Autistic genius - Daniel Tammet
On the outside, 31-year-
old Daniel Tammet is an
unremarkable young
man. But behind Tam-
met's bookish exterior
lies a superhuman gift:
one of the most
extraordinary
brains our
planet has ever
seen. He is a
mathematical
genius, capa-
ble of astro-
nomical calcu-
lations in the
blink of an eye.
And he's a gift-
ed linguist,
speaking nine
languages, including one
he created called Manti.
Tammet says he was born
with the ability to experi-
ence numbers in an ex-
ceptionally vivid way.
"The numbers are moving
in my mind," he says.
"Sometimes they're fast,
sometimes they're slow.
Sometimes they're dark.
Sometimes they're bright.
That emotion, that motion,
that texture will be highly
memorable for me."
The phenomenon is
called synaesthesia, a
mixture of the senses that
results in a heightened
sensory experience. Tam-
met is able to see and feel
numbers. In his mind's
eye, every digit from zero
to 10,000 is pictured as a
3-dimensional shape with
a unique colour and tex-
ture. For example, he
says, the number fifteen
is white, yellow, lumpy
and round.
Synaesthesia occurs when
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regions of the brain asso-
ciated with different abili-
ties are able to form unu-
sual connections. In most
people's brains, the
recognition of colours,
which is longer a little bit
like an hourglass. And
there's a space that's cre-
ated in between. That
shape is the solution.
6,943!"
Tammet first discov-
ered his mathemati-
cal abilities as a
child, the eldest of
nine children in his
family in England.
the ability to manipulate
numbers, or language
capacity all work differ-
ently in separate parts,
and the information is
generally kept divided to
prevent information over-
load. But in synesthetes,
the brain communicates
between the regions.
Tammet doesn't need a
calculator to solve expo-
nential math problems
such as 27 to the 7th pow-
er -- that's 27 multiplied
by itself seven times --
he'll come up with the
answer, 10,460,353,203,
in a few seconds.
Tammet visualizes num-
bers in their unique forms
and then melds them to-
gether to create a new
image for the solution.
When asked to multiply
53 by 131, he explains the
solution in shapes and
textures: "Fifty-three,
which is round, very
round...and larger at the
bottom. Then you've got
another number 131,
"I learned to count,
like anyone else, at
a young age, and
when I did I would
see colours," he
said. "I would see
pictures in my mind. I
assumed at the time that
everyone saw numbers as
I did."
Tammet didn't do math as
it was taught in school.
Instead, the answers just
came to him.
It was Tammet's obses-
sion with numbers that
led to an incredible feat
on March 14, 2004, known
as Pi Day, when Tammet
broke the European rec-
ord for reciting the num-
ber Pi from memory.
Pi, the ratio a circle's cir-
cumference to its diame-
ter is considered an
"irrational" number in
mathematics because it
does not end. You may be
able to remember the
first few digits -- 3.14159 -
- but not more.
Tammet says he only
read through the digits
once and was able to re-
member 22,514 of them.
After a couple weeks to
practice reciting the num-
bers back, in order, it