Optimnem Blog: The Blog of Daniel Tammet

Interview in Paris Match

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:09:00 +0000

An interview with me appears in this week's Paris Match - for those who read French, it can be read in full online here: http://www.parismatch.com/Actu-Match/Societe/Actu/Autisme-Asperger-un-handicap-invisible-90878/

Interview in Scientific American Mind

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 16:13:00 +0000

The April edition of 'Scientific American Mind' has an interview with me entitled 'Learn to Think Better: Tips from a Savant'. You can read it online here: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=think-better-tips-from-a-savant

French drawing for my book

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 17:01:00 +0000

A great illustration in last week's 'Livre Hebdo' magazine in France for an article on my book 'Embrasser le Ciel Immense' (Embracing the Wide Sky). The mother is scolding her child: 'How does one recognise a precocious genius? He writes on paper, not the walls!' to which her son replies: 'I didn't mean to!'

Pi Poem

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 13:37:00 +0000

Here is a new poem I just wrote, in English and French, for Pi Day (March 14th):

PI

Three, One, Four, One, Five, and On
The numbers recount their endless tale.
Three - Barefoot green, a silent voice.
White as hunger, One is twice
Bright like babies’ eyes.
Four is timid, envious of E.
Five, Punctuation or a pregnant sigh
Precedes proud Nine, colour of falling night.
Two, an unfastened knot,
A wayward wind, the hollow of Six resounding.
Nearby, Eight, a cloud of fireflies above a lake
Over which I skim Sevens
Remembering that Zero is nothing but a circle.

PI

Trois, Un, Quatre, Un, Cinq, et ainsi de suite
Les chiffres racontent leur histoire sans limite.
Trois – vert, les pieds nus, une voix silencieuse.
Blanc comme la faim, Un est vif
Comme les yeux d’un bébé.
Quatre est timide, envieux du E.
Cinq, ponctuation ou soupir lourd
Précède le Neuf fier, couleur d’une nuit tombante.
Deux, un nœud défait, vent rebelle,
Comme le creux du Six qui résonne.
Tout près, Huit, nuage de lucioles au dessus d’un lac
Sur lequel je fais des ricochets avec les Septs
En me souvenant que Zéro n’est rien qu’un cercle.

Embracing the Wide Sky German Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel) — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 09:33:00 +0000

I'll be in Hamburg, Germany, next week to promote the German edition of 'Embracing the Wide Sky' entitled 'Wolkenspringer' (cloud jumper!) Here's what the book looks like:

CBC Hour photos on Flickr

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 09:51:00 +0000

A set of photos from my interview on CBC's 'The Hour' with George Stroumboulopoulos has been put up by the production team on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thehour/sets/72157613020564237/

Interview in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 16:15:00 +0000

Here's an interview I recently gave on my book (German translation available by Patmos, entitled Wolkenspringer) and ideas:

http://www.faz.net/ (type 'Tammet' to find article - the link is too long to include in full here!)

Globe and Mail bestseller!

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:46:00 +0000

'Embracing the Wide Sky' has made the Globe & Mail bestseller list in Canada:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/v5/content/books/hardcover.html

Book Review in the 'Telegraph'

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 16:36:00 +0000

A book review for 'Embracing the Wide Sky' was published this last weekend in the 'Telegraph' (UK). A few extracts:

"He tells us that people with autism can be abundantly creative. If we think of the condition simply as one that leads people to take in a whole world of information without editing the irrelevant bits, and making the connections necessary to make sense of, say, social situations, we’re missing something exciting. It’s the connections somebody with the condition does make that are important. After all, poets link the unexpected because they make associations between parts of their experience that are often disparate. Tammet quotes from the Borges story “Funes the Memorious”: “He remembered the shapes of the clouds in the south at dawn on April 20, 1882, and he could compare them in his recollection with the marble grain in the design of a leather-bound book which he had seen only once.”

Here, Tammet is telling us about the benefits of forgetting, but it serves his purpose about the links, too. The way he remembers so many numbers, or the succession of American presidents, or masters languages, is to make this information part of a coherent world, and he reminds us that “these dots of data make most sense when they contribute to something greater than ourselves”."

"The book is full of information such as this, packed with his clear summaries of fascinating experiments. Does the principle behind six degrees of separation work? Can babies count? Will computers ever hold a conversation? Can you think in two ways at once? At times the nuggets he gives us can seem like diverting trivia, and there’s a pleasing amount here that looks like digression but isn’t, so we can enjoy the splendour with which it all coheres, just as the author does."

"Recent debate has bumped up this book from delightful to vital, because we are learning that it is possible to scan babies in utero to see how likely it is that they have autism. If you read Embracing the Wide Sky you might well wonder what the point would be. For one thing, as Tammet points out, there are as many sorts of autism as there are people with autism, so perhaps these tests won’t tell us much. And for another thing, as the author demonstrates, the joys that a brain and its insights can bring, be it in Bach or prime numbers, can be intense and life-affirming, whether you’re ordinary, extraordinary, or both at once."

You can read the whole review here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/4398614/Embracing-the-Wide-Sky-a-Tour-Across-the-Horizons-of-the-Human-Mind-by-Daniel-Tammet---review.html

Interview in The Australian

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:53:00 +0000

My interview with Australia's national paper 'The Australian' has just appeared online - you can find it here: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24986084-26040,00.html

I'm particularly humbled by the compliments of Australia's prize-winning neuroscientist Professor Allan Snyder (whose work I write about in 'Embracing the Wide Sky') who describes my book in the article as: "an extraordinary and monumental achievement...It is as if he has packed 12 years of research into this book, it is intellectually rigorous, insightful and beautifully written for anybody let alone somebody with autism."

UK and Canada Bestseller!

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 12:48:00 +0000

'Embracing the Wide Sky' has just hit the UK bestseller list - no.8 in today's the Independent/Waterstone's chart. It has also made the amazon.ca non-fiction bestseller list (no.9). Thanks to all my readers for their fantastic support!

Swedish Article

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 08:47:00 +0000

http://www.svd.se/nyheter/idagsidan/halsa/artikel_2382795.svd

French edition of 'Embracing the Wide Sky'

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:34:00 +0000

The French edition of 'Embracing the Wide Sky' (Embrasser le Ciel Immense) is now available - I translated the book myself, with the kind assistance of my partner Jerome.

For any francophones reading this: Je serai sur le plateau du 'Grand Journal' (Canal Plus) mardi le 27 janvier a partir de 20h!

Articles in the Times and FT

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 10:42:00 +0000

Here are a couple of articles that have just appeared in the Times and the Financial Times on my new book 'Embracing the Wide Sky' and its ideas:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5575661.ece

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/35b1fd0e-e8db-11dd-a4d0-0000779fd2ac.html

Promotional tour photos

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel) — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 17:09:00 +0000

Appearing on CBC's 'The Hour' with host George Stroumboulopoulos

UK edition of 'Embracing the Wide Sky'

Signing copies of 'Embracing' in Toronto

Giving a talk at London's Science Museum Dana Centre

With psychiatrist Dr. Norman Doidge and Canadian TV presenter Steve Paikin for the TVO show 'The Agenda'

In the hot seat for an interview for 'Good Morning America NOW' in New York

CBC 'The Hour' Interview

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 16:20:00 +0000

On Wednesday I appeared on CBC's late night show 'The Hour' and talked with host George Stroumboulopoulos about my life and ideas, and put him to the test as you'll see in this link to the interview!:

http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/videos.html?id=999589223

Overcoming Information Overload

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 16:18:00 +0000

Here's an excerpt (from chapter 8) from my new book 'Embracing the Wide Sky' that's appearing on the online version of the 'Advocate' magazine:

http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid70108.asp

Scientific American Interview

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:47:00 +0000

I recently did an interview for Scientific American, discussing some of the ideas in my new book 'Embracing the Wide Sky: A Tour Across the Horizons of the Mind'. Here's the link:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=savants-cognition-thinking

On Perception

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 18:56:00 +0000

Here are a couple of extracts and an image from chapter 7 (on vision/perception) of my new book 'Embracing the Wide Sky: A Tour Across the Horizons of the Mind':

"Color is a good way to illustrate the remarkable variety and subjectivity of our perceptions. The range of colors that we see when we look around us, though impressive, is in fact far from exhaustive. Humans are normally able to perceive colors with wavelengths of 400 nanometers (violet) through to 700 nanometers (red), with purples, blues, greens, yellows and oranges in between. Birds, however, can see what we cannot – ultraviolet range colors with shorter wavelengths (between 340 and 400nm). For every color that we see, our feathered friends see many more. "

(From a later section of the chapter:)

"Ambiguous images have long been a staple of optical illusions – images that are designed to demonstrate the vagaries of our perceptions. The ‘open book’ illusion, for example, invented by the German psychologist Ernst Mach, can be seen as either open towards or away from the viewer. Once both perspectives are seen, the viewer’s eye will oscillate between the two representations as our brains try to make sense of what it is seeing..."

On Creativity

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel) — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 15:42:00 +0000

Here are a couple of short extracts from chapter 6 (on creativity) of my new book 'Embracing the Wide Sky: A Tour Across the Horizons of the Mind':

"Like the philosophers of the past, today’s neuroscientists are seeking to understand what makes some people especially creative. Some believe the answer to this age-old enigma can be found in the biology of the brain. Synaesthesia, the scientific term for a mingling of the senses, offers a valuable window on how the brain produces original, creative thoughts, according to neurologist Vilayanur Ramachandran who has been studying the phenomenon for the past two decades"

(From a later section of the chapter:)

"Linguists have long been intrigued by cases of healthy young children (usually twins) who invent their own languages between themselves, without any special assistance or training from adults...This exuberant invention of original word forms by young children has been documented in a range of languages around the world, suggesting that such creativity may be a natural part of the process by which some children acquire a full grasp of their native language."

The book is available now for purchase online at: www.amazon.com/Embracing-Wide-Sky-Across-Horizons/dp/1416569693

Interview in the New Scientist

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 22:19:00 +0000

The 'New Scientist' magazine has just published an interview with me for their January edition. You can read it in full online here: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126881.800-inside-the-mind-of-an-autistic-savant.html

Numbers in the Mind

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:18:00 +0000

Here are a couple of short extracts from chapter 5 (about the relationship between numbers/math and our minds) of my new book 'Embracing the Wide Sky: A Tour Across the Horizons of the Mind':

"How is this mental number line organized in the human mind? There are several clues. One is found when you ask people to think of a number at random between 1 and 50. Though it might be supposed that each response would occur around 2% (1 in 50) of the time, in fact, given a large enough sample of people, a systematic bias can be observed: people will tend to produce smaller numbers more frequently than larger ones. This suggests that numbers are mentally represented rather like the logarithmic scale on a slide rule where roughly equal space is given to the interval between 1 and 2, between 2 and 4 or between 4 and 8. Our ‘mental ruler,’ it would seem, compresses larger numbers into a smaller space, which is why smaller numbers are more accessible to our minds."

(From a later part of the chapter:)

"As many as 10-15% of people report some kind of graphic mental representation of numbers. Francis Galton, a psychologist and cousin of Charles Darwin, carried out the first of these surveys back in 1880. The responses he obtained offer a fascinating glimpse into the sheer variety of mental number representations... some of the number lines had twists and bends, some turned upside down or back on themselves. A physicist replying to Galton’s questionnaire described seeing numbers in the form of a horseshoe, with 0 at the bottom right, 50 at the top and 100 at the bottom left. Another respondent, a barrister, described visualising the numbers 1-12 as though on the face of a clock, with the following numbers tailing off afterwards into an undulating stream with the tens – 20, 30, 40, etc. – at each bend."

The book is now available for purchase online here: www.amazon.com/Embracing-Wide-Sky-Across-Horizons/dp/1416569693

On Language Learning

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 09:15:00 +0000

Here a couple of extracts from chapter 4 of my new book 'Embracing the Wide Sky':

"A recent finding by researchers at the University College London Centre for Human Communication demonstrates that, given the right stimulus, the adult brain can indeed be retrained to accurately acquire the sounds of a second language...In one study Japanese subjects were retrained to hear the difference between r’s and l’s (something that Japanese students of English find especially difficult)...By the end of the 10-week training period the subjects had improved their recognition of the two sounds by an average of 18%."

(From a later section of the chapter:)

"Examples like these suggest to many linguists that certain words are a more natural ‘fit’ than others for the things they describe. A number of experiments over several decades have supported this idea...the German psycholinguist Heinz Wissemann asked a group of subjects to invent words for various sounds. He found that the subjects tended to create words beginning with ‘p’ ‘t’ or ‘k’ for abrupt sounds, and words beginning with ‘s’ or ‘z’ for flowing sounds. In a more recent experiment involving natural language, the linguist Brent Berlin provided English speakers with fish and bird names from the Huambisa language (spoken in Peru). He found that they were able to distinguish the words for fish from those for birds significantly more often than chance, even though Huambisa bears no resemblance to English."

On Memory

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel) — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 15:09:00 +0000

Here are a couple of short extracts from chapter 3 (on memory) of my upcoming book 'Embracing the Wide Sky: A Tour Across the Horizons of the Mind':

"Remembering something from our past is not at all like pulling facts from our brains, but rather a reconstruction aided by our level of interest, knowledge, and emotion at the time of the event and the subsequent point of recollection. The neurologist Antonio Damasio contends that we remember in this way because there is no single area or location in the brain that contains the memory of a past experience. Rather, different aspects of an experience activate different parts of the brain so that remembering involves a process of pulling these distributed pieces back together. "

(From a later section in the chapter:)

"Elaborative encoding is how experienced actors are able to memorise lengthy scripts with very high levels of accuracy. Rather than attempting to learn their lines by rote, the actors analyse scripts, questioning the underlying meaning of the material in order to better understand the motivations and goals of their characters. Studies confirm that when students are asked to use “all physical, mental, and emotional channels to communicate the meaning of material to another person, either actually present or imagined” their line retention improved significantly, compared to those who read the script for comprehension alone."

For more information about the book, and/or to pre-order, visit http://www.optimnem.co.uk/book.php

Book Video for 'Embracing the Wide Sky'

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:25:00 +0000

Here is a 5 minute video of me discussing some of the key themes of my new book 'Embracing the Wide Sky: A Tour Across the Horizons of the Mind' - hope you enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIDMCC2SJek