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Unit 1. Genius. Nature or Nurture. Page 6. Reading 1.

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A Genius Explains by Richard Johnson, The Guardian.

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Daniel Tammet is talking. As he talks, he studies my shirt and counts the stitches.

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Ever since the age of three, when he suffered an epileptic fit, Tammet has been obsessed with

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counting. Now he is 26 and a mathematical genius who can figure out cube roots quicker

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than a calculator and recall pi to 22,514 decimal places. He also happens to be autistic,

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which is why he can't drive a car, wire a plug, or tell right from left. He lives with extraordinary

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ability and disability. Tammet is calculating 377 multiplied by

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700.

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795. Actually, he isn't calculating. There is nothing conscious about what he is doing.

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He arrives at the answer instantly. Since his epileptic fit, he has been able to see numbers

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as shapes, colors, and textures. The number two, for instance, is a motion, and five is a clap of

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thunder. When I multiply numbers together, I see two shapes. The image starts to change and evolve,

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and a third shape emerges. That's the answer. It's mental imagery. It's like maths without having

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to think. Tamit is a savant, an individual with an astonishing, extraordinary mental ability.

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An estimated 10% of the autistic population and an estimated 1% of the non-autistic population

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have savant abilities, but no one knows exactly why. Scans of the brains of autistic savants

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suggest that the right hemisphere might be compensating for damage in the left hemisphere.

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While many savants struggle with language and comprehension, skills associated primarily with

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the left hemisphere, they often have amazing skills in mathematics and memory, primarily

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right hemisphere skills. Typically, savants have a limited vocabulary, but there is nothing limited

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about Tamit's vocabulary. Tamit is creating his own language, strongly influenced by the

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by the vowel and image-rich languages of northern Europe.

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He already speaks French, German, Spanish, Lithuanian, Icelandic, and Esperanto.

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The vocabulary of his language, manti, meaning a type of tree,

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reflects the relationships between different things.

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The word ima, for instance, translates as mother,

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and ila is what a mother creates, life.

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Paika is sun, and paiva is what the sun creates, day.

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Tamit hopes to launch manti in academic circles later this year,

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his own personal exploration of the power of words and their interrelationship.

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Last year, Tamit broke the European record for recalling pi,

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the mathematical constant, to the furthest decimal point.

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He found it easy, he says, because he didn't even have to think.

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To him, pi isn't an abstract set of digits.

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It's a visual story, a film projected in front of his eyes.

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He learnt the number forwards and backwards,

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and last year spent five hours recalling it in front of an adjudicator.

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He wanted to prove a point.

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I memorized pi to 22,514 decimal places,

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and I am technically disabled.

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I just wanted to show people that disability needn't get in the way.

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Tamit is softly spoken, and shy about making eye contact,

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which makes him seem younger than he is.

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He lives on the Kent coast, but never goes near the beach.

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There are too many pebbles to count.

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The thought of a mathematical problem with no solution makes him feel uncomfortable.

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Trips to the supermarket are always a chore.

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There's too much mental stimulus.

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I have to look at every shape and texture, every price,

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and every arrangement of fruit and vegetables.

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So instead of thinking,

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what cheese do I want this week,

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I'm just really uncomfortable.

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Tamit has never been able to work 9 to 5.

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It would be too difficult to fit around his daily routine.

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For instance, he has to drink his cups of tea

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at exactly the same time every day.

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Things have to happen in the same order.

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He always brushes his teeth before he has his shower.

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I have tried to be mindful of him,

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more flexible, but I always end up feeling more uncomfortable. Retaining a sense of control is

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really important. I like to do things in my own time and in my own style, so an office with

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targets and bureaucracy just wouldn't work. Instead, he has set up a business on his own,

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at home, writing email courses in language learning, numeracy, and literacy for private

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clients. It has had the fringe benefit of keeping human interaction to a minimum.

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It also gives him time to work on the verb structures of manti. Few people on the streets

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have recognized Tamit since his pie record attempt, but when a documentary about his life

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is broadcast on Channel 5 later this year, all that will change. The highlight of filming was

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to meet Kim Peek, the real-life character who inspired the film Rain Man.

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Before I watched Rain Man, I was frightened. As a nine-year-old schoolboy, you don't want people

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to point at the screen and say, that's you. But I watched it and felt a real connection.

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Getting to meet the real-life Rain Man was inspirational. Peek was shy and introspective,

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but he sat and held Tamit's hand for hours. We shared so much, our love of key dates from

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history, for instance, and our love of books. As a child, I regularly...

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took over a room in the house and started my own lending library. I would separate out

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fiction and nonfiction, and then alphabetize them all. I even introduced a ticketing system.

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I love books so much. I've read more books than anyone else I know. So I was delighted

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when Kim wanted to meet in a library. Peek can read two pages simultaneously,

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one with each eye. He can also recall in exact detail the 7,600...

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books he has read. When he is at home in Utah, he spends afternoons at the Salt Lake City Public

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Library, memorizing phone books and address directories. He is such a lovely man, says Tamit.

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Kim says you don't have to be handicapped to be different. Everybody's different, and he's right.

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As a baby, he, Tamit, banged his head against the wall and cried constantly. Nobody knew what was

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wrong. His mother was anxious and would swing him to sleep in a blanket. She breastfed him for two

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years. The only thing the doctors could say was that perhaps he was understimulated. Then,

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one afternoon when he was playing with his brother in the living room, he had an epileptic fit.

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I was given medication, round blue tablets to control my seizures, and told not to go out in

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direct sunlight. I had to visit the hospital every month for regular blood tests.

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I hated those tests, but I knew they were necessary. To make up for it, my father would

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always buy me a cup of squash to drink while we sat in the waiting room. It was a worrying time

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because my dad's father had epilepsy and actually died of it in the end. They were thinking,

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this is the end of Daniel's life. He remembers being given a ladybird book called Counting when

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he was four. When I looked at the numbers, I saw images. It felt like a place I could,

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go where I really belonged. That was great. I went to this other country whenever I could.

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I would sit on the floor in my bedroom and just count. I didn't notice that time was passing.

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It was only when my mom shouted up for dinner or someone knocked at my door that I would snap out

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of it. One day, his brother asked him a sum. He asked me to multiply something in my head,

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like what is 82 times 82 times 82 times 82.

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The answer just flowed out of my mouth. He asked me several others, and I got every one right.

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My parents didn't seem surprised, and they never put pressure on me to perform for the neighbors.

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They knew I was different, but wanted me to have a normal life as far as possible.

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Tamit could see the car park of his infant school from his bedroom window,

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which made him feel safe. I loved assembly because we got to sing hymns.

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The notes formed a pattern in my head, just like the numbers did.

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The other children didn't know what to make of him and would tease him.

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The minute the bell went for playtime, he would rush off.

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I went to the playground, but not to play. The place was surrounded by trees.

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While the other children were playing football, I would just stand and count the leaves.

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Tamit made me a little more comfortable. I would just stand and count the leaves.

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He may have been teased at school, but his teachers were always protective.

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I think my parents must have had a word with them, so I was pretty much left alone.

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He found it hard to socialize with anyone outside the family,

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and with the advent of adolescence, his shyness got worse.

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After leaving school with three A-levels—History, French, and German, all grade Bs—he decided he

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wanted to teach, only not the predictable, learn-by-wrote type of teaching.

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For a start, he went to teach in Lithuania, and he worked as a volunteer.

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It was also the first time I was introduced as Daniel, rather than the guy who can do weird

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stuff in his head. It was such a pleasant relief. Later, he returned home to live with his parents

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and found work as a maths tutor. When he isn't working, Tamit likes to hang out with his friends

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on the church quiz team. His knowledge of popular culture lets him down, but he's a shoe-in when it

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comes to teaching. He's a good student, and he's a good teacher. He's a good teacher, and he's a good teacher.

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I do love numbers, he says. It isn't only an intellectual or aloof thing that I do.

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I really feel that there is an emotional attachment, a caring for numbers. I think this is a human

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thing. In the same way that a poet humanizes a river or a tree through metaphor, my world gives

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me a sense of numbers as personal. It sounds silly, but numbers are my friends.