Born On A Blue Day

Title: Born on a Blue Day
Author: Daniel Tammet
Series: None
Genre: Non-Fiction; Memoir



Daniel Tammet was recently on a 20/20 episode entitled, "Superhumans." Mixed in with women who think they are real mermaids was this man in his early 30's. Mom called me to watch him because he has memorized over 22,000 digits of pi. (3.14159...) This isn't the first time I've heard of someone memorizing several of the digits (I've judged past pi competitions) so I was overly impressed. It was what he said about the numbers of pi and how he remembered them.

Daniel has synesthesia. He sees numbers and letters (even days of the week and words) as colors and pictures. He can remember pi because to him it is a landscape that he just needs to "read." The picture to the left is Daniel's actual drawing of what he thinks the first 20 digits of pi look like.

His method of doing multiplication in his head is also astounding. For example, if he was to do the problem 53x131, he sees the illustration to the left. He only sees the two numbers and they are in the specific shape that they always show to him. Then he sees the shape that should fill the void between the two and that shape is also a number to him - the answer. It's just amazing.

Daniel is an Autistic Savant who functions at a very high level. He currently is living with his partner and even has his own website. This is Daniel's memoir.

I didn't find it to be as excellent as some of the reviews on Amazon said. It reminded me a little of a young child who is telling a story and saying, "and then....and then...and then" It doesn't say that exactly, but that's the feeling I got.