Mysterious Brain Of Daniel Tammet

Chris

導讀： Daniel Paul Tammet是一名世界聞名的孤獨癥學者。他有一顆神奇的大腦，天生具有快速計算、瞬時記憶以及高超的語言學習能力。心靈感應研究認為，數字會在人腦中形成顏色或感覺，而數字在Tammet的腦中所形成的精神圖像卻很獨特。在他的腦海中，1到10000的每個數字都有自己獨特的形狀和感覺，他能輕松地得知計算結果，感覺出一個數字是否是質數。

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. 與眾不同的

exceptional adj. 異常的

synesthesia n. 共同感覺

perception n. 理解，認知（同根動詞perceive）

weave v. 交織（woven是過去分詞）

savant n. 自閉癥學者

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

知識鏈接：

羅塞達石碑，于1799年發現于羅塞達，上刻埃及象形文字、通俗字和希臘文，從而成為解讀埃及文字的鑰匙。