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Daniel Tammet

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Daniel Paul Tammet
Daniel Tammet speaking at Reykjavík University
Born (1979-01-31) 31 January 1979 (age 45)
United Kingdom London, England, UK
Websitewww.optimnem.co.uk

Daniel Paul Tammet (born 31 January 1979) is a writer with high-functioning autistic savant syndrome. His bestselling 2006 memoir Born On A Blue Day was named a "Best Book for Young Adults" in 2008 by the American Library Association.

Biography

Early life

Tammet was born and raised in East London, the eldest of nine children. Born with a different surname, he decided to change it by deed poll because "it didn't fit with the way he saw himself." "Tammet" means "oak tree" in Estonian. At four he suffered epileptic seizures, which he subsequently outgrew following medical treatment. At age twenty-five he was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome (a high-functioning form of autism) by the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University.

He was the subject of a documentary film in the UK entitled The Boy With The Incredible Brain, first broadcast on the British television station Channel Four on 23 May 2005. The documentary showed his meeting with Kim Peek, a world famous savant. Peek was shown hugging Tammet telling him that "Some day you will be as great as I am", to which Tammet replied, "That was a wonderful compliment, what an aspiration to have!"

Careers

When Tammet finished Secondary School, instead of going onto higher education, like his parents had anticipated, he instead decided that he would rather begin looking for job opportunities, on the basis that he "was never comfortable with the idea of going on to university" . He sought a job which had an environment which was "structured, logical, and quiet" . He ended up applying, and being accepted, for a youth branch of VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas). After one week's training he was given his assignment: an English-teaching placement in Lithuania, where he and an American Peace Corps volunteer by the name of Neil worked together to prepare and teach English lessons to Lithuanian women. Tammet decided to learn Lithuanian, and asked the group's translator, Birutė, if she would teach him. She "was more than happy to teach me," Tammet remarks in his memoir, Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant. One year later, after his job contract ended, he returned to London.

After his return to London, he and his partner Neil began living together. Tammet was interviewed for a position at a library, but was turned down. Eventually, he and Neil decided to work together on an idea that Tammet had: to create an online language learning website, which Tammet named Optimnem. The website was a commercial success, and since 2006 has been "an approved member of the U.K.'s National Grid for Learning", and is still a source of income for Tammet today.

Synaesthesia

Tammet is well-known for his unusually vivid and complex synesthesia. In his mind, he says, each positive integer up to 10,000 has its own unique shape, colour, texture and feel. He can intuitively "see" results of calculations as synaesthetic landscapes without using conscious mental effort, and can "sense" whether a number is prime or composite. He has described his visual image of 289 as particularly ugly, 333 as particularly attractive, and pi as beautiful. The number 6 apparently has no distinct image. Tammet has described 25 as energetic and the "kind of number you would invite to a party". Tammet not only verbally describes these visions, but has also created artwork: including a watercolour painting of Pi.

Pi

Tammet holds the European record for reciting pi from memory to 22,514 digits in five hours and nine minutes. This sponsored charity challenge was held in aid of the National Society for Epilepsy (NSE) on “Pi Day”, 14 March 2004, at the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, UK. The NSE was chosen to benefit from this event because of Tammet's experience with epilepsy as a young child. Professor Allan Snyder at the Australian National University said of Tammet: "Savants can't usually tell us how they do what they do. It just comes to them. Daniel can describe what he sees in his head. That's why he's exciting. He could be the 'Rosetta Stone'."

Language abilities

Tammet can learn new languages very quickly. To prove this for a documentary film, Tammet was challenged to learn Icelandic in one week. Seven days later he appeared on Icelandic television conversing in Icelandic, with his Icelandic language instructor saying it was "not human" and "genius!". Segments of the interview showing Tammet responding to questions in Icelandic were televised on the 28 January 2007 edition of the CBS news magazine, 60 Minutes.

Tammet states in "Born On A Blue Day" that he speaks ten languages including: English, French, Finnish, German, Spanish, Lithuanian, Romanian, Icelandic, Welsh, and Esperanto.

He particularly likes Estonian, because it is rich in vowels. Tammet is creating a new language called Mänti. Mänti has many features related to Finnish and Estonian, both of which are Finno-Ugric languages.

Writings

Born On A Blue Day, Tammet's memoir of a life with high-functioning autistic savant syndrome, received international media attention and critical praise. Booklist's Ray Olson stated that Tammet's autobiography was "as fascinating as Benjamin Franklin's and John Stuart Mill's" and that Tammet wrote "some of the clearest prose this side of Hemingway". Kirkus stated that the book "transcends the disability memoir genre". Other reviewers praised Tammet for his "elegant," "eloquent," and "engaging" style.

In 2007, Tammet traveled to the United States to promote his memoir, Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant. Tammet was born on a Wednesday, a day he perceives as the colour blue. While on his U.S. book tour, he appeared on several television and radio talk shows and specials, including 60 Minutes and Late Show with David Letterman. In February 2007 Born on a Blue Day was serialised as BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week in the United Kingdom. He describes his meeting with Kim Peek, upon whom Rain Man was based, as one of the happiest moments of his life. They connected when they made calculations using each other's birth dates, and instantly got the correct answers.

Tammet's second book Embracing the Wide Sky attempts to shed light on the mystery of savants' mental abilities. Tammet argues that the differences between savant and non-savant minds have been exaggerated.

Personal life

Tammet met his first partner, software engineer Neil Mitchell, in 2000. Tammet lived with him in Kent, where they had a quiet regimented life at home with their cats, preparing meals from their garden. Tammet and Mitchell operated the online e-learning company Optimnem, where they created and published language courses. Tammet was open about his relationship with Mitchell, whom he described as "the love of his life."

Tammet however now lives with a new partner, Jérôme Tabet, a 29-year-old photographer whom he met while promoting his autobiography. Although he has said that he did not think he would be here if it were not for the love and support of Mitchell, more recently he noted that he used to live a rigid existence aimed at calming his many anxieties "I was very happy, but it was a small happiness" whereas now, as the subtitle of Embracing the Wide Sky: A tour across the horizons of the mind asserts, he believes that we ought to seek to liberate our brains - a belief reflected in his new life:

My life used to be very simple and regimented but since then I have travelled constantly and given lots of lectures and it just changed me...It made me much more open, much more interested in, I guess, the full potential of what my mind could do...Because of that change I grew and in a sense I grew apart from my long-term partner, so we parted amicably in 2007, and a short while later I met my current partner, who is from France so I decided to go and live with him in Avignon.

Mänti

Mänti is a language that Tammet has created. The word 'Mänti' comes from the Finnish word for 'pine tree' (mänty). Mänti uses vocabulary and grammar from the languages of Scandinavia. Some sample words include:

  • buss (bus)
  • kuppi (cup)
  • kellokült (lateness, tardiness; literally "clock-debt")
  • puhukello (telephone; literally "speak-bell")
  • tontöö (music; literally "tone-art")
  • nööt (night)
  • koet saapat (footwear)
  • hamma (tooth)
  • rât (wire)
  • râatio (radio)

See also

References

  1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2005/feb/12/weekend7.weekend2
  2. Daniel Tammet; Kim Peek; Shai Azoulai; VS Ramachandran (2006). Extraordinary People - The Boy with the incredible Brain (.SWF) (Video). Channel Four. Event occurs at (inclusive) 43 min. Retrieved 2007-02-28.
  3. ^ Tammet, Daniel (2006). Born on a Blue Day. London: Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0340899748. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)
  4. Note: it should be known that this is not the same Neil as the one that later becomes his life partner
  5. ^ Morely Safer (28 January 2007). "Brain Man". CBS News. Retrieved 2007-02-02.
  6. "CBC News - The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos". Cbc.ca. 2009-01-15. Retrieved 2009-06-08.
  7. "Pi memory feat". Oxford University. 15 March 2004. Retrieved 2007-02-02.
  8. "Pi in the Sky - New European Record Set". Pi World Ranking List. 15 March 2004. Retrieved 2007-02-02.
  9. Richard Johnson (12 February 2005). "A genius explains". The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-03-10.
  10. Tammet, Daniel (2009). Embracing the Wide Sky. London: Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0340961325.
  11. Sarah Lyall (15 February 2007). "Brainman, at Rest in His Oasis". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-04-30.
  12. Caroline Scott (13 August 2006). "Daniel Tammet Life and Style Times Online". The Times. London. Retrieved 2007-05-26.
  13. Fred Bernstein (2007-06-19). "The Smartest Man in the World is Gay". The Advocate. pp. 44–53. Retrieved 2007-05-25.
  14. Rachel Dowd (2007-06-19). "His Beautiful Mind: Inside the brain of an autistic savant lies a parallel universe". The Advocate. pp. 50–53. Retrieved 2007-05-25.
  15. "A savvy savant finds his voice | The Australian". Theaustralian.news.com.au. 2009-01-31. Retrieved 2009-06-08.
  16. ^ "Mänti". Retrieved 2008-12-15.

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