Daniel Paul Tammet is a British high-functioning autistic savant gifted
with a facility for mathematical calculations, sequence memory, and
natural language learning. He was born with congenital childhood
epilepsy.
Experiencing numbers as colors or sensations is a well-documented form
of synesthesia, but the detail and specificity of Tammet's mental
imagery of numbers is unique. In his mind, he says, each number up to
10,000 has its own unique shape and feel, that he can "see" results of
calculations as landscapes, and that he can "sense" whether a number is
prime or composite. He has described his visual image of 289 as
particularly ugly, 333 as particularly attractive, and pi as beautiful.
Tammet not only verbally describes these visions, but also creates
artwork, particularly watercolor paintings, such as his painting of Pi.
Tammet holds the European record for memorising and recounting
pi to 22,514 digits in just over five hours. He also speaks a variety
of languages including English, French, Finnish, German, Spanish,
Lithuanian, Romanian, Estonian, Icelandic, Welsh and Esperanto. He
particularly likes Estonian, because it is rich in vowels. Tammet is
creating a new language called Mänti.
Tammet is capable of learning new languages very quickly. To prove this
for the Channel Five documentary, Tammet was challenged to learn
Icelandic in one week. Seven days later he appeared on Icelandic
television conversing in Icelandic, with his Icelandic language
instructor saying it was "not human."
