Daniel Tammet is a British man. A brilliant British man.
Possibly the highest functioning autistic savant ever known, Daniel (known in the UK as Brainman) can perform astonishing calculations in his head and says that numbers form visual landscapes full of colour and texture, making some more attractive than others.
289 is very ugly.
333 is quite beautiful.
But for Daniel, the most beautiful number is the universe is Pi....π....
On March 14, 2004, Daniel astounded the world when he recited Pi to 22 514 decimal places with no mistakes in 5 hours and 9 minutes. He had it memorized. He still remembers it. Most of us get to 3.14159 and say "blah blah blah".
"It literally took me a few weeks to learn the number, and that was backwards as well as forwards."
Daniel also speaks 9 languages...well, 10 actually, if you count Mӓnti, a language he has created and has been speaking since he was a child.
He was put to the test when researchers challenged him to learn Icelandic in 7 days. He did it. After one week, Daniel appeared on Icelandic television and was interviewed.
He is a truly fascinating individual.
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3 comments:
yep, i saw that show a few months ago on pbs...the guy is pretty intense. he's fully functioning, yet completely f-ed! good call on the post, kiddo.
jay
I think the part that freaked me out the most is that he has a hard time going to the beach due to his uncontrolable impulse to count the grains of sand.
yikes...!
poor bugger...i have a tough enough time keeping track of the boobies, let alone the sand!
jay
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