Original subtitles

[Music]

I'm seeing things in my head like little

sparks firing off and it's not until the

very last moment that there's bugs tell

me what but on earth they I've never

encountered anyone like this

he absolutely blew my mind

to scientists this man is a gold mine a

once-in-a-lifetime opportunity

this could be the linchpin that spawns

off a new field of research why are they

all so excited genius it's not you will

have Daniel Tammet claims that since he

was four years old he's been able to do

huge calculations in his head so in

August 2002 we dropped by armed with a

calculator and you can't see this

calculator that I've got here can you we

first asked Daniel to multiply 37 by

itself four times okay five to seven to

the powerful

[Music]

1 1 million yeah

870 4160 what amazing just to make sure

that people say well perhaps you just

know a few of these off by heart let me

just choose another one next we asked

him to divide 13 by 97

low point one three four zero two zero

six that's as far as my calculator goes

three and one eight five five six seven

you're carrying on like oh you know tell

me to stop off how many points can you

do it 200 niddy hundred at this point we

borrowed a computer that gave us the

answer to thirty two decimal places

okay no point one three four zero two

zero six one eight five five six seven

as he went on every single number was

correct and he even surpassed the

computer for

three nine one seven five two

we've reached the end of the computers

all 100% amazing when you're pointing to

the table and doing shapes with your

fingers what's going on I'm seeing the

numbers but see this is strange

I'm seeing pictures shapes and patterns

almost on a square like a texture who

would know drops ripple was almost like

something reflective it's somebody can

look from whom us on italic I along with

a half clown a bit like a flash it

sounds preposterous but if it's true it

blows away scientific theory Daniels

brain seems to be doing something fun

wasn't magical it appears to be doing

maths without him actually having to

think

[Music]

as if this wasn't enough Daniel is also

a wizard with words got the I got the

brushes fairly in this case and he knows

nine languages and says he could learn

to speak if you were in just a week

how can Daniel do such enormous

calculations in his head and is it

really possible to learn the language

into seven days I'm currently a

freelance tutor daniel has agreed to be

tested by scientists and will also be

calling his bluff

without warning we'll give him a week to

master a totally new language before

going live on national television

[Music]

but our journey begins in Oxford in

March 2004 Daniel took us by surprise

with a dazzling memory stunt the

ambition is to remember pie to 22,500

decimal places and to recite it in a

live environment with refrigerators who

will be checking and making sure believe

that the recitation is collect from

start to finish

pi is the circumference of a circle

divided by its diameter it's a number

with no pattern but seems to be infinite

Daniel reckon he could reel off the

first 22 and a half thousand decimal

places without a mistake

[Music]

[Music]

two hours later and Daniel is barely

halfway absolutely staggering it's a

beautiful to listens and flower numbers

it's beautiful to see the concentration

[Music]

it's always amazing to be in front of

one of the world's extraordinary persons

[Music]

three nine nine 550 service it's

wonderful it's almost religious it's

quiet recitation numbers mesmerizing

five six seven zero nine one one zero

five one seven three one seven two eight

seven four eight one five nine after

five hours and nine minutes

Daniel is nearing the finish license his

recall has been flawless

[Music]

finished yeah

[Applause]

is dopes Makani brilliant brilliant yes

but does this mean that Daniel could

also have learned by heart thousands of

different calculations or does he as he

claims have some strange power to see

the answers in his head

his childhood holds a dramatic clue

one of nine children brought up in East

London

Daniel claims that he's been able to do

massive calculations since he was only

four

I had quite a severe seizure as a very

small child series of seizures and a

diagnosis of epilepsy was made his

childhood fits seemed to have changed

something in his brain it's really from

that time that I started to to see

pictures in my mind images started to to

form intuitively Daniel also began to

perceive the patterns within numbers

cases like this are extremely rare yet

there are others who have also suffered

injury to the brain only to emerge with

a startling and often similar kind of

talent

Orlando Saral was just 10 when he

received his fateful blow me a friend

playing baseball I was a batter ran the

first base they got through the ball and

ball he got my left side ahead it was a

hard hit right up in this area right up

in there and I just stayed on the ground

I didn't go to hospital they get no

treatment or nothing to his surprise

ball and Oh soon discovered that he

could name the day of the week and

recall the weather for any dates since

his accident

February 17 nineteen eighties on a

Sunday with sunshine and clear skies

June 3rd 1995 was on a Monday it was hot

March 28th 1990s on a Wednesday sunshine

so much fun to walk eight miles on a

Sunday cloudy I can explain it but his

pops right into my head somehow the

circuitry in his brain is computing

calendar dates what part of my brain is

doing is I don't know

both Orlando and Daniel seem to possess

special powers of perception as well as

enhanced memory there are only a handful

of people like this worldwide and they

are known to science as savants the

concept was popularized by the hit movie

Rain Man where actor Dustin Hoffman

plays the part of a brilliantly gifted

misfit like Rain Man

most sevens lack normal social skills

often because they're autistic in fact

the link with autism is so strong that

we wondered whether it could be a factor

in Daniels abilities Cambridge

neuroscientist professor Simon

baron-cohen an expert on autism will be

making a careful assessment

autism is a spectrum of medical

conditions where people have a lot of

difficulty in forming social

relationships and in putting themselves

into other people's shoes to imagine

other people's thoughts and feelings but

it's also where the individual develops

very strong narrow interests obsessions

and likes to do things in a very

repetitive way so it's a mix of ability

and disability

25 year-old Daniel seems to have lots of

ability yet no obvious disability today

he's joined by his mother who will help

to reconstruct Daniels childhood or any

of her memories it turns out are still

vivid if you had Daniels first childhood

never have another child because the

constant crying up until now have nearly

the age of Tori balloons a real handful

he would just cry constantly we took two

even swinging him in a blanket his bed

would be at one end of the bank I would

have yeah and we we resorted to that out

of desperation did you like that

yes that's soft and he like this sort of

repetitively yes yes that served him

[Music]

the repetition seemed to serve him and

there's again a very sort of classic

autistic characteristic I mean if you if

you think back to the days when he was

at primary school with it were the

teachers at all and concerned about him

or did they talk about him as if he was

different in some way you know what

would happen during break time

[Music]

I think I would the capstone to

accounting stones and also there was a

setup called hopscotch yeah cuz I would

count the numbers on your hands dog

this was what interested me into this is

what I would they were nothing about it

[Music]

I know you didn't integrate that well I

remember you walking around the

playground and looking at up at the

trees

I will climb the trees and look at the

leaves of the path and some harm and

leaves in the bog

[Applause]

there seems to have the complexity

within their shapes and yeah textures

that reminds me of the endless right

numbers for me have always been like the

most real thing for me

from the time I was about five I've

always looked through numbers lumps are

in my lens the way I've looked at the

world around me so always count things

so I will look at something and say that

looks like 131 fix-up what that looks

like 52 and just always thinking that

this is how everyone else experiences

numbers you know that this is a normal

thing he got most pleasure out of just

taking the maths books home and lying in

his bedroom floor alone going as far as

he could with numerical problems and

just understanding numbers thing much

more comfortable in a world of of

numbers than people Daniel's obsession

with maths is at least part of the

explanation phase special ability with

numbers the things that he Ava's felt

were his friends

because I was so different mm-hmm the

children who would be bullies didn't

know what to do with me you know they

didn't know how to teach me so they just

let me be pretty much by most measures

Danny is autistic but he's also picked

up enough social skills to blend in the

one criterion debt really is missing to

warrant a diagnosis is that his symptoms

are not really interfering currently

with his life for whatever reason he's

managed to to adapt to our world

Daniel is lucky rare abilities like his

usually come with severe mental handicap

as part of the price Dane Bertino is a

several - they're very different from

Daniel the one thing his gift is not for

maths we knew by two-and-a-half that

Dane wasn't talking but instead he was

just expressing himself through art he

was drawing night and day

since he was a toddler Dane has been

able to draw with extraordinary

precision but there's always been a

flipside to his talent language and

social skills remain childlike even as

his art becomes richer he really pays

attention to the little my new details

but he would put the emotion in

[Music]

he loves drawing in the sand

and he enjoys watching the waves come in

and wash it away and then draw something

else because he draws really quickly so

he likes to see things changed so that

he can dress something new how is this

remarkable boys seeing the world it

would be fascinating to know if only he

could tell us

what makes Daniel different from sevens

like Dane and so extremely valuable to

science is that he can describe what's

going on inside his head my expense

numbers in a very visual way using

colors texture shape you form sequences

of numbers form landscapes in my mind it

just happened it's like having a fourth

dimension

it's one for example would be very

bright very bright and shiny numbers

it's almost like somebody flashing a

light in my face you know today it's a

very interesting experience

number two is kind of like a movement

right - laughs - kind of like a drifting

motion five is like the clap of thunder

or the sound of a wave against the wall

six is very small words Ashley the

number I find hardest to experience in

any sort of meaningful visual way so

it's it's often the absence of anything

it's like a whole war or a chasm or like

a black hole number nine is the biggest

number is very tall there can be

intimidating Daniel says he sees every

number up to ten thousand as a distinct

shape or image until recently many

researchers would have dismissed this is

mumbo jumbo but there is now a sound

scientific explanation different parts

of our brain are specialized for

different tasks juggling numbers for

example or seeing shapes

if cross activation occurs between areas

that are normally separate then things

can get very mixed up

you might hear a sound and see a color

or think a number and feel emotion

scientists call this weird phenomenon

synesthesia

[Music]

Jullian ash isn't a researcher at

Cambridge University experiences

synesthesia himself but is struck by how

peculiar it is in Daniel the most

synesthetes what they see is much more

abstract for instance I see what almost

might be colored flames the sort of a

flickering flowing movement but Daniel

sees very concrete shapes which is quite

unusual is the entire number drifting

upwards as Julian believes that Daniels

complex imagery is the key to his

gigantic memory but when he's recalling

a number to twenty two thousand and five

hundred digits what he's doing is moving

mentally through a synesthetic landscape

in effectively reading the numbers from

the landscape but are Daniels numbers

shapes also the key to his maths ability

to find out more were sending him to San

Diego's Center for brain studies in

California where he'll be grilled by

skeptical scientists first though he'll

be traveling across America and putting

some of his mental powers to the test

Daniel is in New York but not as we know

it for someone who reads numbers into

everything the city is giving him a

strange vibe

being in New York we're 40 some huge

skyscrapers

intimidating for me and old otama had

the sensation and then being surrounded

by nines number nine is not allowed me

but there can be a very nerve-racking

experience seeing objects as numbers as

something Daniel has grown up with it

can be a little distracting but it's

also something he can use to his

advantage

Daniel is going to meet the chess

hustlers but he won't be playing chess

instead he proposed a memory game he

wants five minutes to memorize a board

with 26 randomly placed pieces and he's

offering ten bucks for every mistake

tonight's it's an offer they can't

refuse

talk about having to imagine that it

wasn't a chessboard by the sequence of

numbers and then I was experiencing the

numbers as imagery

[Music]

time's up c6 d5 they scrutinize Daniels

positions trying to find fault I pretty

much got it spot-on I think there was

one piece I didn't put on the board

and now with the hustle do you mind if

we take the pieces off and test one of

you two guys yes

you're pretty good just like I said I'm

pretty impressed me too I don't know if

I can tap with one of you my friend

would like we can give you as much we

can give you an extra a few minutes if

you really want to study the other guide

and chess hustler I take my hat off

Jimmy was game he went for it he did it

I was actually impressed personally

speaking he did better than I thought he

would do I think he made my mistakes for

me that's amazing

if he's not experiencing the pieces in

any distinctive way and yet he's able to

do that it shows that war memory is

really good if you're talking memory

though as one man who is in a league of

his own he's the world's most famous

savant and Daniel's next stop on route

to California

Daniel's next stop is the one he's been

savoring a meeting with the real Raymer

[Music]

looking forward to meeting Kim peek

because he's meant to be amazing

he was the guy that the Rain Man

character was based on

this is really exciting for me because

it's my first time meeting someone else

with whom I have this bond

Daniel makes his way to Salt Lake City's

problem and his father are waiting for

him

[Music]

nice to meet you they head off to a

quiet corner but Daniel can find out

more about Kim stupendous men with total

photographic memory he remembers

everything he's ever read he can tell

you the every city in the United States

its highways and its area codes and it

zip codes and it's television stations

in his counties and when it was made at

state the history of any country all the

rulers and when they served presidents

of this country when they were born

their wives their families all of NASA's

accomplishments so when they went up

when they came down what they're doing

you could talk to you about the Bible he

can quote scriptures he can tell you

anything about if you want to ask him

about he seems like everything he reads

he maintained

and nine months neuropsychiatry said he

said severely mentally he will

never be able to learn you should put

him in an institution forget about him

but Kim was reading encyclopedias by age

four and had finished the high school

curriculum by fourteen goodbye y'all

pain imma leave and Cheyenne you know

that

how fast can he read he reads a page

that you and I would read and and three

minutes approximately it takes you about

eight to ten seconds

he reads left pages left I write pages

the right eye and remembers about 98% of

it go back through here

came my birth date is January 31st 1979

it was at it was a it was a Wednesday

and you sure it's a Saturday returned

2044 on a Sunday what you did green

victory had become great through certain

1901 came if Winston Churchill was alive

today he Howard would he be 130 and what

day of the week would his birthday fall

on this year it would be on a Tuesday

the last day of nowhere

in 1987 Kim met actor Dustin Hoffman and

became the inspiration for the hit movie

Rain Man we went to Hollywood the next

morning and Kim spent the day with

Dustin and all of his film friends

because it was amazing all the things

they asked him and all the things he

knew it was just like I had known him

before there were so many new things

that came out of me although I'm much

older

you're still a fine man thank you

some of you yes he says you don't have

to be handicapped to be different

because everybody's different

[Music]

though all sorts of associations

bubbling over in his mind no wonder you

look like Mary Ruth as it was almost as

if he had too much information and he

couldn't get it out quickly enough

[Music]

he's parting words to me well we looked

into each other's eyes and he said one

day you'll be as great as I am and that

was a wonderful compliment and what an

aspiration to have

[Music]

before he encounters the scientists

Daniel is making one last stop

inspired by Rain Man he's in Las Vegas

to see if he can use his amazing memory

to beat the house

[Music]

for someone who hates crowds and

flashing lights it's an unsettling kind

of place I haven't actually been in a

casino before I play cards for friends

sometimes that by playing with me

[Music]

in blackjack the dealer has the

advantage and even for a card counter it

still comes down to chance

[Music]

there was actually really hard to

concentrate because the white lights the

noise the atmosphere a strange mixture

tension and excitement or what in one

Daniel is playing two rounds with eight

decks each that's over four hundred

cards to keep track of at once

[Music]

round one is a disaster Daniels chips

are disappearing fast and memory alone

just isn't giving him an edge eventually

he changes strategy

and follows his instincts at the end I

was just relying on intuition Dimitri as

it flows into my mind

at the most unpromising moment Daniel

decides to gamble the house had a 10:00

which the regel card and I was given 2/7

and that's not a good hand and it's

particularly not a good hand against the

ten what I decided to do was split the

sevens an unusual move statistically

speaking not the best move but something

in my head was telling me to do that

anyway because of the imagery that I was

experiencing and so I spent - 7 -

doubled my bet was given a five card and

it also turned out to be a seven and at

this stage I was really sure of the laws

of the game because this is the first

time I've played blackjack and I casino

so powers can I split those two

then she's surprised but she says sure

if you want to so she splits toes and so

I now have free hands at one time

against a ten and the people behind me

at a teen and they're you know they're

saying what what is he doing you know

he's so but he's playing free hands

against a 10 he's splitting seven to

come as a ten he's crazy

and then she draws the remaining cards

for each seven he hits 21 on his first

hand

and again I'm sick

that's two out of two who'd bet against

the hat trick now

[Music]

his sixth sense proves a winner and in

one fell swoop

Daniel squares his losses but Daniel

needs to stay sharp as he heads for

California and the showdown that really

counts at San Diego's Center for brain

studies he's about to face a series of

tests but he really have some kind of

sixth-sense an ability with numbers that

goes beyond just memory neuroscientist

professor Ramachandran and his team and

intrigued by the idea but have their

doubts when Rama first came to me and

said hey we've got this math savant

that's coming here and he can do 4x4

multiplication and he can recognize

primes and he can do division out to so

many decimal places I thought yeah yeah

he's probably faking it or he's got it

memorized you know there's all sorts of

techniques and I'm very much a big

skeptic of this with the pleasantries

over the testing can begin 27 to the

power of six

[Music]

one zero four six zero three five three

two zero three that's not better than

the calculator I need to see whether or

not that zero three years correct but

you know I have a feeling it would be 36

[Music]

Daniel's jetlag is wrecking his

concentration and slowing him up seven

five seven three six daniel has

certainly impressed the scientists with

his ability to calculate but they're

keeping an open mind about his method

okay here we are confronted with

somebody who claims to have amazing

computational skills and when we tested

him with some simple numbers doing an

AMA tujhe two digit number like 37 ^ 7

very very quickly gave us the accurate

announcer and we did this several

different numbers the question is how is

he doing him one possibility is that

daniel has trained himself to do super

fast calculations in his head as we're

about to see the human brain can do

incredible things

believe it or not an extraordinary maths

ability like Daniels is something that

ordinary people can learn here in Tokyo

some schools still teach the ancient art

of the abacus

[Music]

children start learning the basic skills

aged four and practice every day

[Music]

by the time they're 12

these whiz kids are fast becoming human

calculators to be sure lessons are not

for the faint-hearted well and sometimes

bear strict so some child five perhaps

or sometimes I hit them but they keep

coming here I hope they're happy but

when they are training they never have a

smile on their faces nevertheless eight

years of hard slog can produce

jaw-dropping results 12 year old Kota

cazuca is top of the class I practiced

two hours on weekdays until now it's on

the weekend I want to become the

national champion along with the other

high flyers he can now be huge

calculations with a purely imaginary

abacus

manipulating nothing but the thin air

[Music]

children like this show us that with

enough practice superfast mental

calculation is possible hi hi Naomi yeah

Daniel insists he's not doing this kind

of conscious calculation at all

he says the answers come to him

spontaneously out of his mental imagery

Rama and his team of finding it hard to

trip them up but they're not finished

with him yet if Daniels descriptions of

his numbers are real then they should

also be consistent Raman asks Daniel to

model some of his numbers with play-doh

but doesn't tell him that he'll be

retested the next day it's hard to

imagine him having memorized shapes the

question is are they the same shape so

we can actually compare that now that's

two for two now let's see is two for two

today overall there's a remarkable

similarity that's very interesting

let's take 58 again same story very

similar same color same shape but not

exactly the same 810 from today 810 from

yesterday and again it's a very precise

shape so the general impression is he

seems to be producing the same shapes

consistently Daniel has cruised the

consistency test but Rama and his team

are still dubious that Daniel reacts

emotionally to certain numbers I was a

little bit mean and I played a trick on

Daniel he said he loved pie because it

was beautiful it was just this wonderful

special shape well if it's so beautiful

for him and he normally gets this

wonderful warm reaction from pie I

thought that I would show him something

that initially would look like pie on

the surface 3.14 and tweak it a little

bit throw in numbers like six which he

doesn't like

the small electrodes attached to Daniels

fingers are like a lie detector they'll

measure any emotional response good or

bad

so if Daniel is shown a number that he

really loves there should be a clear cut

signal so sure enough I showed him this

bastardized version of pi and we saw

this very nice you know warm the

galvanic skin response and then all and

it jumped up and then all of a sudden it

jumped again and as he was scanning it

we kept getting another jolt and another

adult and another jolt and it wouldn't

stop and afterwards I was asking what's

going on in your head when you were

seeing that and he said well you know

here's this beautiful number pie that I

love and I see it and then as I'm

looking at the landscape all of a sudden

there's a pit where it's not supposed to

be and you know this mountain is missing

and and it's really it's wrong and how

could you do that something so beautiful

and and you know while it was a little

bit mean to do that to him it really

shows the point that he does have some

sense of emotion associated with these

numbers because the skin response was

off the charts

it was something you just can't fake

these are the things specifically that

are showing me he's not bullshitting and

he's not scamming even the mistakes that

Daniel is making are the mistakes that

tell me you know what this is this is

legit a faker wouldn't be doing this

so we've Daniel is the real how is he

able to do such huge calculations

without any conscious effort you did

this computation in your head what

exactly was going on in here at

I see an image in my head and that image

starts to change such to almost like

evolve it's quite vague at first as I'm

looking at it it becomes clearer and

clearer over a time and then from from

that landscape I can read the digits out

sort of gradually crystallized yes in a

multiplication the two numbers hover

before him as distinct shapes the gap in

between makes a third shape which Daniel

experiences as a new number the correct

answer he's doing math but he doesn't

even know it

when it comes to numbers it seems that

Daniels brain really is doing something

extraordinary something the scientists

can't yet get a handle on this could be

the linchpin that spawns off a new field

of research but we still had one last

test for Daniel Daniel is now flying to

Iceland for his ultimate challenge

we've given him a week to learn a

totally new language from scratch and

then go live on national television even

the locals say that Icelandic is

confusing and unpronounceable the

difficult bit is the grammar I would say

but we have furnished sounds but he had

nowhere in the mother to never do like a

sound like this with the clock ticking

Daniel badly needs some lessons but his

teacher doesn't seem hopeful there was a

minute but it's impossible to know an

Icelandic so the foreigners that I get

to Tate's they have this feeling it's

like he would say impossible impossible

for a human to learn this in a week just

all move left

that's the Icelandic word for impossible

you know Cologne kiss be given a kiss

Daniel's brain power may have met its

limits first when you get into a new

language is like a person you just

that's put it here

you don't hear words you just a little

bit a little bit and for the ear it

takes time to adjust and tune in and

trying to find the sound it's one thing

to learn the language to speak it to be

able to produce it as touchy you know

talk with somebody comprehension

actually listening to the language and

understanding it that's that's something

else because takes time for the ear to

actually get used to the totally

different sounds

queer ducks duck season with a day to go

before Daniels live chat show his

teachers early doubts returning to

amazement it was like a white computer I

can see he was sucking up the words and

he was this putting it in his grade

little by little hour by hour I'm just

beginning to tune in and hear more and

more of the language and understand more

and more of it it's one thing to chat

with the teacher speaking live to a

quarter of a million people is the real

test I have no idea what will come out

tomorrow night if you get too stressed

nothing is going to come out

[Music]

the seven days are up and Daniel is

making last-minute preparations before

he goes live on air

just

[Music]

okay

[Music]

Milton ultra-left minions where to

Milano measly hace la reina tolerate

annual tomato Eastlands witness

diminutive not welcoming welcoming a

letter I sense fear in me so fat like oh

yeah err fatal error

how Co Telkom Vega

yay is land Inca dollar is let's go

so eat that Enzo under or YAG air Neff

essence Kozma how well has Daniel

managed to speak Icelandic

after just a week of learning the

language from scratch yes lending go

Carla a key mouth ride astonishingly it

looks like Daniel has pulled it off

we all got Darla isn't school math

ascending go I was amazed he was

responding to our questions he did

understand them very well and I thought

that his grammar was very good Milan

Garcia

so my header we are very proud of our

language and then the someone is able to

speak it after only one week that's

first is great so Daniel is definitely

unique I would say him as a genius and

for me I will never ever get in touch

with that person or a student as gifted

as he is because it's always beyond its

it's it's not you

[Music]

there's no doubt that abilities like

Daniels are extremely rare world

authority on sevens dr. Darrell Trafford

has spent a lifetime studying the Rain

Man phenomena and is in no doubt where

to rank Daniel my estimate is are

probably fewer than 50 such people

living world one I think Daniels ability

is that a prodigious level because I

would be speaking to her if there were

to be seen in any of us would be

spectacular equally though Daniel has

been blessed with almost miraculous good

fortune there lying between profound

talent and profound disability seems

really and surprisingly Finland the way

Daniel can describe his inner world is

giving scientists a window into the

brain that they've never heard but the

truth is their journey of exploration is

only just beginning the bigger question

is whether we all have some of those

abilities within us and that is what I

refer to as the little green man within

each of us what I do it isn't I don't

think it's equal no I don't think it's

something I can't be explained who knows

there may be a bit of his head everyone

can perhaps tap into in some way

savant syndrome is challenging us to

think in new ways about intelligence and

what intelligence is

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you

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