Brain man.

A fascinating documentary about an extraordinary 25-year-old, Daniel Tammet, who can create mind-boggling mathematical calculations, can speak 9 languages fluently and claims he can learn a new language from scratch in a week. What makes Daniel's story particularly compelling is that he, unlike most other 'savants', has excellent language and communication skills, so is able to describe how he believes his amazing memory works. According to Daniel, he sees numbers as images and calculations as journeys through landscapes of images, colours and shapes. At the start of the programme he and his mother describe his childhood and he is also assessed by Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, expert in autism, to see if there are any autistic aspects to his psychological make-up. The rest of the programme follows Daniel across America where he, among other things, meets Kim Peek, the world's most well-known savant and inspiration for the movie Rain Man. Daniel is then put to the test by Professor V.S. Ramachandran in San Diego. It is rapidly apparent that Daniel can indeed perform complex mathematical calculations, so the question is how does he do it. Ramachandran suspects he may have learned a conscious method of mathematics like the ancient art of abbacus calculation still taught to some Chinese children. Daniel still maintains his synaesthetic response to numbers and at the end of the testing Ramachandran and his assistant believe him. Finally Daniel goes to Iceland and is taught Icelandic for seven days, then asked to speak it on live Icelandic t.v. He passes the test. Darold Treffert, expert in savants, claims Daniel is one of the most important living people in terms of neurological research. Daniel himself describes well the precariousness of his position as such a valuable scientific curiosity when he acknowledges that: 'the line between profound talent and profound disability is so fine.'