A small quibble with this sentence from the article: "Now he is 26, and a mathematical genius who can figure out cube roots quicker than a calculator and recall pi to 22,514 decimal places." Tammet is not a mathematical genius, as human calculating prodigies almost never are. It's a mistake to equate the ability to do astonishing mental calculations with aptitude for pure mathematics. While it's true that some great mathematicians have also been great calculators—for example, Newton, Euler, and Gauss—not all great mathematicians are great calculators—for example, Alexander Grothendieck. Indeed, Grothendieck, one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century, has admitted to not being very good at arithmetic, and there's a pretty funny story told about him (you can find it in this article on page 1196):
One striking characteristic of Grothendieck’s mode of thinking is that it seemed to rely so little on examples. This can be seen in the legend of the so-called “Grothendieck prime”. In a mathematical conversation, someone suggested to Grothendieck that they should consider a particular prime number. “You mean an actual number?” Grothendieck asked. The other person replied, yes, an actual prime number. Grothendieck suggested, “All right,take 57.”
bump for later reading
Gee, that is very interesting. I don't tell many people this because they look at me like I'm odd, but I have always associated colors with numbers for some reason. 5 is green, 4 is red, 3 is orange, 2 is yellow, etc. But I can't add those numbers without a calculator and the only pi I can recall is that little strawberry number in my fridge.
Seriously though, that was a fascinating article.
Wow!
""There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
his favourite book is a good dictionary, or the works of GK Chesterton.
Excellent choice.