• Science is the study of how things work, how things are made and
how we live our life.
• Science is all around us, because even air has lots of chemicals in it
and chemicals is science.
• Neurology (our science) is in our everyday life because your brain is
responsible for everything we do. Even watching this presentation
uses your brain to process the information.
• Do you know your parents phone number? Do you know the street
you live in? Do you know your own name? This is all thanks to
memory. Memory everyday lives, because even knowing how to put
on your shirt is memory related. We will give you a challenge. We
want you to try and memorise a random 7 letter sequence. We will
test you at the end of our presentation. Ready? Here it is.
MIWNVNM. Got that? Try and remember it.
• In the early days, scientists didn’t know much about how the human
brain works, due to the fact that they didn’t have modern day
technology. In more recent times, technology has developed enough
so that the understanding of the brain has developed. They were able
to make machines that could monitor our brains harmlessly, and
allowed them to read magnetic fields and other areas in our brains.
• Has anyone heard of a savant? Savants are people with extraordinary
abilities, which to most would seem humanly impossible. Scientists
diagnose savants with ‘Savant Syndrome’. This syndrome was created
by the same person who came up with Down Syndrome. Scientists
are trying their best to work out the savant’s brain and give us regular
people their extraordinary abilities. There is just one problem. 75% of
savant’s are severely autistic and disabled. This makes them an
extremely hard subject to work on.
• Savants have many unique abilities. There is no definition to what abilities you need to
be classified a savant. The abilities that have been recorded that they have are;
• Musical abilities: Being able to play any piece of music flawless after hearing it only once.
• Calendar Counting: Being able to recall any day on any date around 30 000 years in the
past and the future.
• Mathematical: Being able to do extremely hard mathematical equations in a matter of
seconds e.g. being able to do 36 to the power of 7 in a flash.
• Literacy: There has only a few recordings of literature savants, but one has the ability to
read the left page of the book with his left eye and the right page with his right eye. It is
estimated that a page that would take us 3 minutes to read, would take him 10 seconds!
• Telepathy: This is not a skill that is proven, but many people have reported a girl that
could read their mind, and had the ability to predict small things, like a phone call that
would be coming soon!
• Has anyone heard of the Rain Man? His real name is Kim Peek, and is classified by
scientists as a ‘mega savant’. Well was. He died 5 years ago at the age of 58. He was the
only savant in history with a literature ability. He could read the left page of the book
with his left eye and the right page with his right eye. He also knew all the zip codes of
San Francisco, which were all around 6 numbers long. Kim Peek had severe autism and
relied on his 80 year old dad to look after him, after his parents divorced. When Kim was
born, the doctor was late for a golf match and spent 5 minutes with Kim’s parents, telling
them to leave him in an institution because he wouldn’t be able to learn or do anything
by himself. He didn’t even have the courtesy to talk Kim’s parents through his thoughts,
he just said chuck him in an institution and forget about him! Kim’s parents didn’t agree
with the decision of the doctor and raised him on their own, but divorced later. Growing
up was tough for Kim because of his autism, and didn’t have the courage to look anyone
in the eye. Then, in 1987, a movie director called Barry Morrow wanted to make a movie
about him, after he met him. After the movie premiered, Kim was no longer scared of
meeting and talking to new people. He would talk to anyone he met, and enjoyed
showing off his amazing knowledge of anyone. His most famous quote was, ‘You don’t
have to be disabled to be different because we are all different.’
• http://youtu.be/z22H89rIMHk
• Skip to 5:30
• Daniel Tammet was born on the 31st of January 1979. He is 35 and
lives in London, United Kingdom. He is a math savant with a twist. He
has autism but is seemingly not active. Doctors can’t explain it very
well but his autism has no effect on him, so he is practically a gold
mine for scientists, because he can be tested and experimented on
without him minding. His most famous for (as you saw) saying the
first 22000 digits of pi. Pi is an infinite number with no pattern, and
the closest fraction approximation is 22/7.
• When Daniel was young, he suffered from a severe seizure, which
landed him in hospital. After that, everywhere he went he saw maths.
Daniel suffered from synaesthesia, which links two parts of the brain
that don’t normally link. The most common case is normally
something like if you smell something, you will “see” a colour. Daniel
has a rare condition that links shapes and numbers together. It still
doesn’t explain how his brain does super fast calculations, but it
explains why he sees shapes for numbers. So, if he sees something
tall, it will remind him of the number 9. If he sees something empty, it
will remind him of 6. These are just some examples of the thousands
of numbers that he sees in his head.
• Dane Bottino is a self-taught artist. He started drawing when he was
two years of age. He is autistic and lost his beginning language about
the same age. He instead spent every waking moment drawing to
express his emotions, desires and thoughts. Surprisingly, even at
three years of age, he could draw with accurate precision. Scientists
say it would be very interesting if he could tell them how he sees the
world, but due to his autism, he can’t.
• Did you remember the 7 letter sequence? Here it is:
• MIWNVNM
• Did you remember it? Scientists say it is hard to remember because
you can’t visualise it well, because all the lines are too close together.
• www.google.com.au
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savant_syndrome
• http://www.neatorama.com/2008/09/05/10-most-fascinatingsavants-in-the-world/
•