Mysterious Brain Of Daniel Tammet

Chris

导读： Daniel Paul Tammet是一名世界闻名的孤独症学者。他有一颗神奇的大脑，天生具有快速计算、瞬时记忆以及高超的语言学习能力。心灵感应研究认为，数字会在人脑中形成颜色或感觉，而数字在Tammet的脑中所形成的精神图像却很独特。在他的脑海中，1到10000的每个数字都有自己独特的形状和感觉，他能轻松地得知计算结果，感觉出一个数字是否是质数。

Daniel Tammet has one of the most extraordinary brains on Earth. Not only does Daniel Tammet has exceptional mathematical abilities， but he is also very good with languages. He speaks ten languages and successfully showed he learned a foreign language in just a week！

There are still many things scientists do not know about his condition and mysterious brain. Born in 1979， Daniel Tammet has language， number and sight synesthesia. This means that his perception of words， numbers and colors are woven together into a new way of perceiving the world.

Daniel was lonely. “I really needed a friend and I used to be in bed at night thinking about what it would be like. My younger brothers and sisters had friends and I used to watch them playing to try to work out what they did and how friendship worked. Then， I would have traded everything for normality. But Ive， since learned that， being different isnt a bad thing.”

One person out of every 1，000 has a brain disorder called synaesthesia. Surprising as it may seem， there are people who can smell sounds， see smells or hear colors. Daniel is experiencing numbers as colors. In his mind， every number up to 10，000 has its own shape. “My worlds of words and numbers are woven with color， emotion and personality.”

As Juan said， its the condition that scientists call synesthesia， an unusual cross-talk between the senses. “Here are the numbers one to twelve as I see them—every number with its own shape and character. One is a flash of white light. Six is a tiny and very sad black hole. Three is green. Four is blue. Five is yellow，” said Tammet.

His mathematical abilities are so extraordinary that it took a long time for them to be found out. He is also familiar with a number of foreign languages， including French， Finnish， German， Spanish， Romanian， and Icelandic， as well as his own invented language，“M■nti”， which has about 1，000 words. Tammet lear ned Icelandic in a week， in front of the cameras. The top challenge was a live interview on Icelandic TV， which he dealt with excellently.

Unlike most savants， Daniel Tammet does not seem to have mental disability， and most important to scientists， he can describe his own thought.

In his book Born on a Blue Day， he describes his life with synaesthesia. Doctor Darold Treffert， says： “Such first-person explanations of savant abilities are very rare.” Daniel Tammet may very well be a scientific Rosetta stone， a key to understanding our mysterious brain.

Vocabulary

extraordinary adj. 與众不同的

exceptional adj. 异常的

synesthesia n. 共同感觉

perception n. 理解，认知（同根动词perceive）

weave v. 交织（woven是过去分词）

savant n. 自闭症学者

（Have you ever known any people who has extraordinary abilities？）

知识链接：

罗塞达石碑，于1799年发现于罗塞达，上刻埃及象形文字、通俗字和希腊文，从而成为解读埃及文字的钥匙。