Daniel Tammet first came to worldwide attention in March 2004 on international Pi Day (3/14, of course) when he recited, from memory, Pi to 22,514 decimal places. It took over five hours and set a new European record. The event, which Daniel named “Pi in the Sky”, coincided with Einstein’s birthday and took place in front of Einstein’s blackboard at the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford, England. Daniel used that event to raise funds for the National Society for Epilepsy because it was after a series of childhood seizures that his extraordinary number and memory abilities began, aligning him with that rare circumstance of the ‘acquired savant’ in which such exceptional skills surface following some CNS injury or disease. He is proud of the monies raised on behalf of this organization, and certainly gave this worthy cause a good deal of visibility.
In addition to number and massive memory skills, Daniel has exceptional language skills as well. He speaks French, German, Spanish, Lithuanian, Esperanto and Icelandic. He learned the difficult Icelandic language in seven days which was carefully documented in the one hour award-winning documentary about Daniel called ‘The Boy With The Incredible Brain’ (titled ‘Brainman’ in the US). It was filmed in 2004.
In the documentary, Daniel also met up with Kim Peek, a real-life savant who was the inspiration for the character Raymond Babbit, played by Dustin Hoffman, in the movie Rain Man. Kim’s parting words to Daniel after their meeting were, “One day you’ll be as great as I am”.
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Chapter: Daniel Tammet ::
30 July 2007
