The smartest of the world's dumbest geniuses
(Reader Contribution to 10 Most Fascinating Medical Miracles)Daniel Tammet, from England, can easily calculate faster, and more accurately, than a computer, but is unable to tell the difference beetween left and right. He has two very rare psychological conditions, Svant-syndrome, and Synesthesia.
Savant-syndrome is a disease normally a side-product of autism, wich causes patients to have strange, almost unexplained abilities. Some are able to play anything after hearing it once, or paint and/or draw better from memory than most people can from a model.
Synesthesia, is ever rarer, not even 20 people in the world suffer (not really suffering) from his condition. It causes senses to be mixed, often making people to see sound, or even taste it!
In the extreme case of Daniel, who has both of them, he can both see the numbers as figures, and be able to combine them in his head. He says, that two figures, placed next to eachother, will form a gap of certain shape, and than shape, is the answer. According to him, every number from 1 to 10000 has it's own unique shape, exept 6.
Because of this, he is able to calculate cube roots in his head, speaks 10 languages, (once learing icelandic in a week) and he once memorized 22514 digits of pi, wich is the european record.
Normally, this kind of intelligence comes with a horrible price, of being totally autistic, and unable to handle people. However, Daniel got his abilities from a seizure, making him one of the few high-functioing savants, wich enables him to be more human.
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