Daniel Tammet was born in
January of 1979 in London, England -- the oldest of nine children, he is an
autistic savant
When he was a baby, Daniel
would constantly bang his head against the wall. His mother was deeply
concerned and breastfed him for two years.
One afternoon, Daniel was
playing with his brother in the living room and went into an epileptic fit. His
father's father had epilepsy and had died because of it. Soon thereafter,
Daniel was put on medication to control the seizures.
Autism is a neurological
disorder characterized by restricted behavior, weakened communication skills
(speech impediments) and impaired social skills. It is usually an inherited
issue, often noticeable before age three. It affects about one or two per 1,000
people globally and occurs four to five times more often with boys than girls.
A savant is a person with
extraordinary mental ability. Scans of the brains of autistic savants suggest
that damage to the left side of the brain may be causing the right side of
over-compensate for the damage. They struggle with comprehension (left brain
hemisphere) but often have amazing skills in memory and mathematics (right
brain hemisphere), which also accounts for a lack of empathy.
For example, a blind
autistic savant, Leslie Lemke, was able to play Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto
No. 1 after hearing it for the first time, even though he had never had so much
as a piano lesson.
Daniel Tammet is fluent in
German, French, Spanish, Icelandic, Lithuanian and Esperanto. He has also
invented his own language, called "Manti." He is able to figure out
cube roots faster than a calculator. He does not see "numbers" -- he
sees them as shapes, colors and textures.
The mathematical constant
"pi" is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter --
its value, to the first 11 decimal digits, equals 3.14159265359. In 2004,
Daniel broke the European record for recalling the value of "pi" to
the furthest decimal. He had memorized this number to 22,514 decimal digits and
can also recite it backwards.
"I do love numbers. It
isn't only an intellectual or aloof thing that I do," Daniel contends.
"I really feel that there is an emotional attachment, a caring for
numbers. I think this is a human thing -- in the same way that a poet humanizes
a river or a tree through metaphor, my world gives me a sense of numbers as
personal. It sounds silly, but numbers are my friends."
The 1988 movie, Rain Man,
starring Dustin Hoffman as an autistic savant, won four Oscars at the Academy
Awards in 1989:
- Best Picture -- Rain Man
- Best Original Screenplay -- Barry Morrow & Ronald Bass
- Best Director -- Barry Levinson
- Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Dustin Hoffman
Barry Morrow created the
character of the autistic savant based on a real-life savant he had met, named
Kim Peek, who is able to read two pages of a book simultaneously and recall in
exact detail the 7,600 books he has read. When at home in Utah, Peek spends his
afternoons at the Salt Lake City Public Library, memorizing phone books.
Daniel Tammet is also an
avid reader. His favorite book is a good dictionary and the works of G.K.
Chesterton, because he likes Chesterton's humorous aphorisms.
“There
are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The
other is to desire less.”
G.K. Chesterton
During his early school
years, Daniel was a shy loner, unable to make eye contact. He would hurry
outside during the recess time, but not to play with the other kids. "The
place was surrounded with trees," he pointed out. "While the other
children were playing football, I would just stand and count the leaves."
After his schooling, Daniel
wanted to be a teacher. Initially, he worked as a volunteer in Lithuania.
Later, he returned home to London to live with his parents and found work as a
tutor of mathematics.
Eventually, Daniel had set
up his own business. He works at home, creating e-mail courses in numeracy,
learning languages and literacy for private clients. Working from home via
e-mail has allowed him to minimize human interface and also gives him time to
work on his own language of Manti.
Daniel Tammet is an odd and
wonderful specimen of the human species -- but then again, incredibly
intelligent people always seem odd to those who aren't.
___________
Quote for the Day – "Anxiety is the
dizziness of freedom." Soren Kierkegaard
___________
Bret Burquest is the author of 12 books. He lives in the Ozark
Mountains with a couple of dogs and an imaginary girlfriend named Tequila
Mockingbird.
___________
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