The Chaotic-Neutron

I am not sure how many people have read about Daniel Tammet but i did not know about him until i saw the following “Ripley’s Believe it or Not” clip, few days back. Here is what it said :

Out of curiosity, i started searching more about this genius. And found a great article, more like an interview with him where he actually explains how he is able to do the things that he does.

An excerpt :

Daniel Tammet is talking. As he talks, he studies my shirt and counts the stitches. Ever since the age of three, when he suffered an epileptic fit, Tammet has been obsessed with counting. Now he is 26, and a mathematical genius who can figure out cube roots quicker than a calculator and recall pi to 22,514 decimal places. He also happens to be autistic, which is why he can’t drive a car, wire a plug, or tell right from left. He lives with extraordinary ability and disability.

I mean, the first look at the article amazed me because like the article says, no one has ever explained on how they are able to do calculations in the mind, fast or slow, because it is all intuitive and it just comes. He talks about seeing numbers as shapes, and calculations meld these shapes together to create new shapes that represent new numbers – that sounds fascinating; it would be great to be able to do that. There is no way you can associate words with what is happening inside your head. But this genius wonder, explains it all, in terms of patterns, colours and shapes. Beautiful !

Another excerpt :

“I do love numbers,” he says. “It isn’t only an intellectual or aloof thing that I do. 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 humanises 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.”

I can exactly understand what he says. Probably every coder can understand that perfectly too. The way you see the design in your head and you just code it without having to think again about variable names or the patterns or the abstraction. It just flows !

Maybe this is what the next evolution of man should look like. Humans, independent of machines, performing zillions of calculations per sec and able to communicate across continents with just the mind. That just might be the right time to throw away all your computers but until then, if you are not a born genius, code on …

There are some more links and views about Dan Tammet. Read on …

@ Wikipedia
@ Spear’s Grotto
@ Digital Antichrist
@ Past Peak
@ MultipleSclerosis
And here’s a good picture of him