Daniel Tammet can tell you the answer...without using a calculator! Just like Kim Peek - the man who inspired the movie Rain Man - Daniel Tammet is a savant and has the extraordinary ability to memorise large amounts of informaiton and perform mind-boggling calculations. Tammet uses a system of colours, textures and emotional resonance to memorise numbers.
"The number one is a brilliant and bright white, like somebody shining a torch beam into my eyes ... Four is shy and quiet, like me. Eighty-nine is like falling snow ..."
He holds the British and European record for reciting pi from memory to 22,514 decimal places. But, like most savants, life beyond memorising information can be very difficult. Until he was 8- or 9-years-old he didn't realise that other children had thoughts and feelings and still finds going to the supermarket a difficult experience. Here are some facts about Tammet.
# He can speak 10 languages, including Lithuanian and Welsh, as well as his own invented language, "Mänti", which has about 1,000 words.
# As part of a documentary that was made about him, called 'Brainman', Tammet learned Icelandic in a week, in front of the cameras. The culmination of the challenge was a live interview on Icelandic TV, which he coped with brilliantly.
# He can recognise every prime number up to 9,973.
The Guardian also has an article on Tammet that was published last year.
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