Daniel TammetA remarkable young man, exhibiting stunning mental abilities. Daniel Paul Tammet born 31 Jan 1979 claims to see colours and sparks, which he can somehow relate to words and numbers. Scientists consider him a gold mine to further investigation into the understanding of brain activity and potential.
Daniel claims that since the age of four, he has been able to do huge mathematical calculations in his head. So the makers of this documentary put him to the test, asking him to calculate 37 raised to the power of 4. He completed this in less than a minute, giving the correct answer of 1,874,161.Daniel Tammet While considering the question, it was observed that, he appeared to be drawing shapes on the table with his finger. When asked about this, he explained that he could see the numbers as shapes and colours in his mind. This breakdown or confusion of the senses is known as synethsesia.
Daniel claims that since the age of four, he has been able to do huge mathematical calculations in his head. So the makers of this documentary put him to the test, asking him to calculate 37 raised to the power of 4. He completed this in less than a minute, giving the correct answer of 1,874,161.Daniel Tammet While considering the question, it was observed that, he appeared to be drawing shapes on the table with his finger. When asked about this, he explained that he could see the numbers as shapes and colours in his mind. This breakdown or confusion of the senses is known as synethsesia.
Next he was asked to divide 13 by 97. This time the researchers had the answer to 32 decimal places, Daniel gave the answer and continued beyond 32. He claims he can do the calculations to 100 decimal places. He appears to be doing the mathematical calculations without actually thinking about it, which seems preposterous, but if true, blows away scientific theory.
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Daniel's talents do not stop at numbers. He is very gifted with words and speaks nine languages and claims to be able to learn a new one in just seven days. To put this to the test, the documentary team shipped Daniel off to Iceland for a week. His Icelandic tutor described their language as immensely complex and considered it an impossibility for anyone to learn in only one week. Daniel Tammet was to appear on an Icelandic talk show at the end of his week to discuss his experience in their native tongue. Although he appeared to struggle to begin with, in the last few days his tutor said "He was like a sponge, absorbing all words and grammar at a phenomenal rate". He made his television appearance with great success.
In March of 2004 Daniel had his own surprise, in Oxford, England, he would recite the number Pi to 22,500 decimal places, in public in front of a team of invigilators to verify his accuracy. After just over five hours he had completed this extraordinary memory feat.
OrlandoHis childhood holds a clue to his unbelievable brain. As a small child he suffered a number of severe seizures which were later diagnosed as epilepsy. Ever since this time he has been able to see the patterns in numbers. While this is rare, there are other cases where individuals have suffered injury to the brain only to emerge with a similar startling talent. Orlando Serrill was just 10 years old when he was hit, hard, on the side of the head by a baseball. Since when, he has been able to recall the day, date and weather of every day since the accident.
The scientific community refer to people with these extraordinary memory skills as savants of which there are only a handful in the world. The conditionDaniel as a baby is often associated with autism. Professor Simon Baron-Cohen a Cambridge University neuroscientist describes autism as a mix of ability and disability. However, Daniel displays the ability with no obvious sign of disability. Daniel, as a baby, cried constantly up until the age of two. He could only be soothed by being rocked in a blanket forming a hammock. Soothing by repetitious movement is, according to Prof. Baron-Cohen, indicative of autism. By most measures, Daniel is autistic but he has managed to develop the social skills to blend in.He said:
"I have always thought of abstract information—numbers, for example—in visual, dynamic form. Numbers assume complex, multidimensional shapes in my head that I manipulate to form the solution to sums or compare when determining whether they are prime or not. For languages, I do something similar in terms of thinking of words as belonging to clusters of meaning so that each piece of vocabulary makes sense according to its place in my mental architecture for that language. In this way, I can easily discern relations between words, which helps me to remember them. In my mind, numbers and words are far more than squiggles of ink on a page. They have form, color, texture, and so on. They come alive to me, which is why as a young child I thought of them as my “friends.” I think this is why my memory is very deep, because the information is not static. I say in my book that I do not crunch numbers (like a computer). Rather I dance with them."
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