Brain Injury Turns Man Into Math Genius

mpicpp sends in the story of Jason Padgett, a man who developed extraordinary mathematical abilities as the result of brain trauma when he was attacked outside a bar. "Padgett, a furniture salesman from Tacoma, Wash., who had very little interest in academics, developed the ability to visualize complex mathematical objects and physics concepts intuitively. The injury, while devastating, seems to have unlocked part of his brain that makes everything in his world appear to have a mathematical structure 'I see shapes and angles everywhere in real life' — from the geometry of a rainbow, to the fractals in water spiraling down a drain, Padgett told Live Science." "He describes his vision as 'discrete picture frames with a line connecting them, but still at real speed.' If you think of vision as the brain taking pictures all the time and smoothing them into a video, it's as though Padgett sees the frames without the smoothing. "

Comments

Tomorrows headline..

[Moheeheeko]

Dozens killed or severely injured trying to learn maths.

Re:No story here, move along

[camperdave]

"Can someone explain to me exactly what is so marvelous about what this dude can supposedly "see"?"

He sees dead people, all the time.

So does a mortician. Big deal!

Re:A "Feyn" place to end Pi

[Em Adespoton]

ridiculous, That only applies to numbers in base 10

Just imagine a number system of base-pi, or possibly base-rad. Of course, then people would be debating how many digits "10" should be approximated to for useful work (like counting your fingers).

Injury unlocked scamming part of brain

[TrollstonButterbeans]

His math is unchanged, but it *damaged* the ethical part of his brain and now he EXCELS at marketing and con-artistry and I heard he is now going to law school!

Re:No story here, move along

[Anonymous Coward]

Says the 6-digit to the 3-digit user ...

Re:Life imitates art: Phenomenon

[Agent0013]

Doo - Doo - Do Do Do.

Phenomenon
Doo - Do Do Do.