Born On A Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic SavantA journey into one of the most fascinating minds alive today—guided by the owner himself. Bestselling author Daniel Tammet (Thinking in Numbers) is virtually unique among people who have severe autistic disorders in that he is capable of living a fully independent life and able to explain what is happening inside his head. He sees numbers as shapes, colors, and textures, and he can perform extraordinary calculations in his head. He can learn to speak new languages fluently, from scratch, in a week. In 2004, he memorized and recited more than 22,000 digits of pi, setting a record. He has savant syndrome, an extremely rare condition that gives him the most unimaginable mental powers, much like those portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in the film Rain Man. Fascinating and inspiring, Born on a Blue Day explores what it’s like to be special and gives us an insight into what makes us all human—our minds. |
Contents
1 | |
13 | |
Struck by Lightning Epilepsy | 29 |
School Days | 47 |
Odd One | 73 |
7 8 9 Adolescence | 91 |
Ticket to Kaunas | 113 |
Falling in Love | 139 |
The Gift of Tongues | 159 |
A Very Large Slice of | 173 |
Meeting Kim Peek | 187 |
Reykjavík New York Home 13 29 47 73 91 113 139 159 173 187 205 | 205 |
Other editions - View all
Born On A Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant Daniel Tammet Limited preview - 2007 |
Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant : a ... Daniel Tammet No preview available - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
ability able answer arrived asked autistic became become began brain brother called cards close colors continued count difficult digits example experience eyes face father favorite feel felt finally floor four friends gave given hands happy hard head idea inside interest knew language later letter Lithuanian living looked meet mind months mother move Neil never numbers once parents person pile places play possible problem quickly recitation remember round seemed sense sequence shape side sisters sometimes spent stand started stay stop talk teacher things thought told took trying understand various visual volunteers waited walked wanted watching week words write
Popular passages
Page vii - First and foremost, we would like to thank the following people, without whom this book would not have been possible: Our families and loved ones. Jason would like to thank his mother, Nancy Santamaría, our most impatient "in-house...
Page 3 - ... six figures in six seconds. When he was asked how many grains of corn there would be in any one of 64 boxes, with 1 in the first, 2 in the second, 4 in the third, 8 in the fourth, and so on, he gave the answers for the fourteenth (8,192), for the eighteenth (131,072), and the twenty-fourth (8,388,608) instantaneously, and he gave the figures for the forty-eighth box (140,737,488,355,328) in six seconds. He also gave the total in all the...