Daniel Tammet | The Boy With The Incredible Brain

This is the breathtaking story of Daniel Tammet. A twenty-something with extraordinary mental abilities, Daniel is one of the world's few savants. He can do calculations to 100 decimal places in his head, and learn a language in a week. This documentary follows Daniel as he travels to America to meet the scientists who are convinced he may hold the key to unlocking similar abilities in everyone. He also meets the world's most famous savant, the man who inspired Dustin Hoffman's character in the Oscar winning film 'Rain Man'. (2005)

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[SPARKS CRACKLING]

I'm seeing things in my head
like little sparks firing off.

And it's not until
the very last moment

that those sparks tell me
what on earth they mean.

I've never encountered
anyone like this.

He absolutely blew my mind.

To scientists, this man is a
gold mine, a once in a lifetime

opportunity.

This could be the
linchpin that spawns off

a new field of research.

Why are they all so excited?

Genius, it's what you want.

Daniel Tammet claims that
since he was four years old

he's been able to do huge
calculations in his head.

So in August 2002, we dropped
by armed with a calculator.

And you can't see this
calculator that I've got here.

Can you?

We first asked Daniel
to multiply 37 by itself

four times.

OK.

OK.

37 to the power of four.

one-- 1 million.

Yeah.

800 and 74,161.

Amazing.

Just to make sure that people
say, well, perhaps you just

know a few of
these off by heart,

let me just choose another one.

Next, we asked him
to divide 13 by 97.

Naught point one three
four zero two zero six--

That's as far as
my calculator goes.

Brilliant.

one eight five five six seven--

You're carrying on.

I'm carrying on.

Tell me to stop or--

How many points
can you do it to?

100-- nearly 100.

At this point, we
borrowed a computer

that gave us the answer
to 32 decimal places.

OK.

Naught point one one three four
zero two zero six one eight

five five six seven--

As he went on, every
single number was correct.

And he even surpassed
the computer.

--four six three nine
one seven five two five--

You've reached the
end of the computer.

It's all 100% amazing.

When you're pointing
to the table

and doing shapes with your
fingers, what's going on there?

I'm seeing the numbers,
but I'm not seeing them.

It's strange.

I'm seeing pictures,
shapes, and patterns.

Almost like a square,
but the texture of water

drops, ripples almost,
like something reflective.

It's something you can look for,
almost metallic, like bubbles,

like a half cloud, a
little bit like a flash.

It sounds preposterous.

But if it's true, it blows
away scientific theory.

Daniel's brain seems to be
doing something almost magical.

It appears to be doing
math without him actually

having to think.

As if this wasn't enough, Daniel
is also a wizard with words.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

He knows nine
languages and says he

could learn to speak a
new one in just a week.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

How can Daniel do such enormous
calculations in his head?

And is it really
possible to learn

a language in just seven days?

Currently a freelance
tutor, Daniel

has agreed to be
tested by scientists.

And we'll also be
calling his bluff.

Without warning,
we'll give him a week

to master a totally new
language before going live

on national television.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

But our journey
begins in Oxford.

In March 2004, Daniel
took us by surprise

with a dazzling memory stunt.

The ambition is to remember
pi to 22,500 decimal places

and to recite it in
a live environment

with invigilators who will
be checking and making sure,

obviously, that the recitation
is correct from start

to finish.

Pi is the circumference of a
circle divided by its diameter.

It's a number with no pattern
that seems to be infinite.

Daniel reckoned
he could reel off

the first 22 and a half
thousand decimal places

without a mistake.

--one four one five nine two six
five three five eight two zero

nine seven four nine three four
two three six four eight seven

eight eight one zero nine two
five nine zero three four six

nine zero eight thirty-seven
seven eight zero six nine nine

five five seven one--

six eight seven four one three--

Two hours later, and
Daniel is barely half way.

one two one--

Absolutely staggering.

It's beautiful to listen
to the flow of numbers.

It's beautiful to see
the concentration.

It's always amazing to be in
front of one of the world's

extraordinary persons.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

--nine six five eight eight two
two six five seven four nine

nine four four one nine--

three nine nine five
two zero six one four--

It's almost religious.

--zero two nine nine--

The quiet recitation of
numbers, it's mesmerizing.

--five six seven zero nine one
one zero five one seven two one

zero two eight seven four
eight one nine nine seven--

After five hours
and nine minutes,

Daniel is nearing
the finish line.

His recall has been flawless.

--three five eight seven.

Finished, yeah.

[APPLAUSE]

It's gobsmackingly brilliant.

Brilliant, yes, but does this
mean that Daniel could also

have learned by heart thousands
of different calculations?

Or does he, as he claims,
have some strange power

to see the answers in his head?

His childhood holds
a dramatic clue.

One of nine children
brought up in East London,

Daniel claims that he's been
able to do massive calculations

since he was only four.

I had quite a severe seizure
as a very small child.

A series of seizures, and a
diagnosis of epilepsy was made.

His childhood fits seem to have
changed something in his brain.

It's really from that
time that I started

to see pictures in my mind.

Images started to form.

Intuitively, Daniel also
begins to perceive the patterns

within numbers.

Cases like this
are extremely rare,

yet there are others who
have also suffered injury

to the brain only to emerge with
a startling and often similar

kind of talent.

Orlando Serrell was just 10
when he received his fatal blow.

Me and a couple of friends
were playing baseball.

I was the batter, and
I ran to first base.

The guy threw the
ball, and the ball

hit me on my left of the head.

It was a hard hit, right up in
this area, right up in there.

And I just laid on the ground.

I didn't go to hospital.

Didn't get no
treatment or nothing.

To his surprise,
Orlando soon discovered

that he could name
the day of the week

and recall the weather for
any date since his accident.

February 17, 1980,
it was on a Sunday.

It was sunshine and clear skies.

June 3, 1985 was on a Monday.

It was hot.

March 28, 1990 is on Wednesday,
and sunshine and clear skies.

--Sunday it was hot.

January 2, 2000, a Wednesday.

December 23, 1992
was on a Wednesday.

December 24, '89 is
on a Sunday, cloudy.

I can't explain it.

It just pops right into my head.

Somehow the circuitry
in his brain

is computing calendar dates.

What part of my brain is
doing this, I don't know.

Both Orlando and Daniel
seemed to possess

special powers of perception
as well as enhanced memory.

There are only a handful of
people like this worldwide,

and they are known to
science as savants.

The concept was popularized
by the hit movie Rain

Man, where actor Dustin
Hoffman plays the part

of a brilliantly gifted misfit.

Like Rain Man, most savants
lack normal social skills,

often because they're autistic.

In fact, the link with
autism is so strong

that we wondered
whether it could be

a factor in Daniel's abilities.

Cambridge neuroscientist,
Professor Simon Baron-Cohen,

an expert on autism, will be
making a careful assessment.

Autism is a spectrum of medical
conditions, where people

have a lot of difficulty in
forming social relationships

and in putting themselves
into other people's shoes,

to imagine other people's
thoughts and feelings.

But it's also where
the individual

develops very strong,
narrow interests,

obsessions, and
likes to do things

in a very repetitive way.

So it's a mix of
ability and disability.

25-year-old Daniel seems to
have lots of ability, yet

no obvious disability.

Today he's joined
by his mother, who

will help to reconstruct
Daniel's childhood.

Amongst your other children,
are any of them also--

Her memories, it turns
out, are still vivid.

If you had Daniel
as a first child,

you'd never have another child,
because the constant crying--

[BABY CRYING]

Up until nearly the age of
two he was a real handful.

He would just cry constantly.

We took to even swinging
him in a blanket.

His bed would be at
one end of the blanket.

I would have the
other, and we resorted

to that out of desperation.

Did he like that.

Yes, that soothed him.

Did he like that sort
of repetitive movement?

Yes, yes, that soothed him.

The repetition
seemed to sooth him.

And that's a kind of very
sort of classic autistic

characteristic.

I mean, if you think
back to the days

when he was at primary
school, were the teachers

at all concerned about him?

Or did they talk about him as
if he was different in some way?

You know, what would
happen during break time?

[BELL CLANGING]

I think I would count stones--
doing the counting stones.

And also, there was a--
is it called hopscotch?

Yeah.

So I would count the
numbers on the hopscotch.

This was what interested me.

And this is what I would do.

And nothing else mattered.

I knew he didn't
integrate that well.

I do remember you walking
around the playground

and looking up at the trees.

I'd walk around the trees
and look at the leaves,

look at the patterns on
the leaves and the bark.

That seems to have the
complexity within its shapes

and textures that
reminds me of numbers.

Yeah, right.

Numbers, for me,
have always been

the most real thing for me.

[CHILDREN PLAYING]

From the time that
I was about five,

I have always looked
through numbers.

Numbers have been my
lens, the way I've

looked at the world around me.

So I will always count things.

So I would look at something
and say, that looks like 131,

for example.

Or that looks like 52,
and just always thinking

that this is how everyone
else experiences numbers

and that this is a normal thing.

He got most pleasure out of
just taking the math books home

and lying on his
bedroom floor alone,

going as far as he could
with numerical problems

and just understanding numbers,
feeling much more comfortable

in a world of
numbers than people.

Daniel's obsession
with math is at least

part of the explanation for his
special ability with numbers--

the things that he always
felt were his friends.

Because I was so different, the
children who would be bullies

didn't know what to do with me.

You know, they didn't
know how to tease me.

So they just let
me be pretty much.

By most measures,
Daniel is autistic.

But he's also picked up enough
social skills to blend in.

The one criterion that really is
missing to warrant a diagnosis

is that his symptoms are not
really interfering currently

with his life.

For whatever reason, he's
managed to adapt to our world.

Daniel is lucky.

Rare abilities like
his usually come

with severe mental handicap
as part of the price.

Dane Bottino is savant
too, though very different

from Daniel.

For one thing, his
gift is not for math.

We knew by 2 and 1/2
that Dane wasn't talking,

but instead he was just
expressing himself through art.

He was drawing night and day.

Since he was a
toddler, Dane has been

able to draw with
extraordinary precision.

But there's always been a
flip side to his talent.

[LAUGHS]

What do you want to do?

[LAUGHS]

[UNINTELLIGIBLE SPEECH]

Dane's language and social
skills remain childlike,

even as his art becomes richer.

He really pays attention to
the little, minute details.

But he would put the emotion in.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

He loves drawing in the sand.

And he enjoys watching the
waves come in and wash it away

and then draw something else.

Because he draws really quickly,
so he likes to see things

change so that he can
draw something new.

How is this remarkable
boy seeing the world?

It would be fascinating to
know, if only he could tell us.

What makes Daniel different
from savants like Dane,

and so extremely
valuable to science,

is that he can describe what's
going on inside his head.

I experience numbers
in a very visual way,

using colors, texture,
shape, and form.

Sequences of numbers form
landscapes in my mind.

It just happens.

It's like having a
fourth dimension.

One, for example, would be
a very bright, very bright

and shiny number.

It's almost like somebody
flashing a light in my face.

You know, it's a very
interesting experience.

Number two is kind
of like a movement,

right to left, kind of
like a drifting motion.

Five is like the clap
of thunder or the sound

of a wave against the rock.

Six is very small.

It's actually the
number I find hardest

to experience in any sort
of meaningful, visual way.

So it's often the
absence of anything.

It's like a hole, or a
chasm, or like a black hole

Number nine is the
biggest number.

It's very tall.

It can be intimidating.

Daniel says he sees
every number up to 10,000

as a distinct shape or image.

Until recently, many
researches would have

dismissed this as mumbo jumbo.

But there is now a sound
scientific explanation.

Different parts of our
brain are specialized

for different tasks.

Juggling numbers, for
example, or seeing shapes.

If cross activation
occurs between areas

that are normally separate, then
things can get very mixed up.

You might hear a sound and
see a color, or think a number

and feel emotion.

Scientists call this weird
phenomenon synesthesia.

--dark, and they're sort of--

Julian Asher, a researcher
at Cambridge University,

experiences synesthesia
himself, but is

struck by how peculiar
it is in Daniel.

For most synaesthetes, what
they see is much more abstract.

For instance, I see what
almost might be colored flames.

There's sort of a
flickering, flowing movement.

But Daniel sees very concrete
shapes, which is quite unusual.

Is the entire number
drifting upwards?

Yes.

Or is it--

Julian believes that
Daniel's complex imagery is

the key to his gigantic memory.

And when he's recalling a
number to 22,500 digits, what

he's doing is moving mentally
through a synesthetic landscape

and effectively reading the
numbers from the landscape.

But are Daniel's number shapes
also the key to his math

ability?

To find out more,
we're sending him

to San Diego's Center
for Brain Studies

in California, where
he'll be grilled

by skeptical scientists.

First though, he'll be
traveling across America

and putting some of his
mental powers to the test.

Daniel is in New York,
but not as we know it.

For someone who reads
numbers into everything,

the city is giving
him a strange vibe.

Being in New York with
all these huge skyscrapers

is intimidating for me.

And all the time I had
this sensation of I'm

being surrounded by nines.

The number nine
is all around me.

But it can be a very
nerve-wracking experience.

Seeing objects as
numbers is something

Daniel has grown up with.

It can be a little distracting,
but it's also something

he can use to his advantage.

Daniel is going to meet
the chess hustlers.

But he won't be playing chess.

Instead, he'll
propose a memory game.

Mind if I interrupt your game?

I'm Daniel.

He wants five minutes
to memorize a board

with 26 randomly placed pieces.

And he's offering 10 bucks
for every mistake he makes.

It's an offer they can't refuse.

So I'm first having to imagine
that it wasn't a chessboard,

but a sequence of numbers.

And then I was experiencing
the numbers as imagery.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Time's up.

And the heat is on.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

OK, that's as good as I can do.

C6, D5--

They scrutinize
Daniel's positions,

trying to find fault.

H4, H6.

That's right.

I pretty much got it spot on.

I think there was one piece
I didn't put on the board.

Listen, that's pretty good
for being a non-chess player.

And now for the hustle.

Do you mind if we take the
pieces off and test one of you

two guys?

You're pretty good
chess players.

Well, like I said, I'm
pretty impressed with you.

I don't know if I can top you.

Would one of you--

Maybe my friend
would like to do it.

But I don't know if
can-- honestly, I don't--

We can give you as much--

we can give you an extra
few minutes if you really

want to study and--

OK.

OK?

[SIDE CONVERSATIONS]

The other guy,
the chess hustler,

I take my hat off to him.

He was game.

He went for it.

He did it.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I was actually impressed,
personally speaking.

He did better than I
thought he would do.

F5--

I think he made nine mistakes.

H4--

For me that's amazing.

All the pieces that
you remembered,

you remembered in
the right order.

If he's not experiencing the
pieces in any distinctive way,

and yet he's able
to do that, it shows

that raw memory is really good.

If you're talking
memory though, there's

one man who in a
league of his own.

He's the world's most famous
savant and Daniel's next stop

en route to California.

Daniel's next stop is the
one he's been savoring,

a meeting with
the real Rain Man.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I am looking forward
to meeting Kim Peek

because he's meant
to be amazing.

He was the guy that the Rain
Man character was based on.

This is really exciting
for me because it's

my first time
meeting someone else

with whom I have this bond.

Daniel makes his way to Salt
Lake City's public library,

where Kim and his father
are waiting for him.

--Kim's father.

Hello, nice to meet you too.

Let's walk down in here.

We can have this whole area.

They head off to a quiet corner,
where Daniel can find out more

about Kim's stupendous memory.

That was about the time
they moved in there.

With total
photographic memory, he

remembers everything
he's ever read.

He can tell you every
city in the United

States, its highways, and its
area codes, and its zip codes,

and its television
stations, and its counties,

and when it was made a state;
the history of any country, all

the rulers and when they served;
the presidents of this country,

when they were born, their
wives, their families;

all of NASA's accomplishments,
when they went up, when they

came down, what they're doing.

He can talk to you
about the Bible.

He can quote scriptures.

He can tell you anything about
it you want to ask him about.

It seems like everything
he reads he maintains.

At nine months, a
neural psychiatrist

said he's severely
mentally retarded.

He will never be able to learn.

You should put him
in an institution.

Forget about him.

But Kim was reading
encyclopedias by age four,

and had finished the high
school curriculum by 14.

(SINGING) Goodbye Old Paint.

I'm a-leaving Cheyenne.

You know that?

How fast can he read?

He reads a page
that you and I would

read in three minutes
approximately,

it takes him about
eight to 10 seconds.

He reads the left page
with the left eye,

right page with the right eye,
and remembers about 98% of it.

Go back through here.

Mm hm.

Kim, my birth date
is January 31, 1979.

It was a-- it was a--

it was a Wednesday.

It was a Wednesday.

And this year it's a Saturday.

You turn 2044 on a Sunday.

What year did Queen
Victoria become queen?

1837 to 1901.

Kim, if Winston Churchill
was alive today,

how old would he be?

130.

And what day of the week would
his birthday fall on this year.

It would be on a Tuesday,
the last day of November.

In 1987, Kim met
actor Dustin Hoffman

and became the inspiration
for the hit movie Rain Man.

We went to Hollywood
the next morning,

and Kim spent the
day with Dustin

and all of his film friends.

It was amazing, all the
things they asked him,

and all the things he knew.

It was just like I
hadn't known him before.

There were so many new
things that came out of it.

Although I'm much older,
you're still a fine man.

Thank you.

So are you.

Yes, sir.

And he says you don't have to
be handicapped to be different,

because everybody is different.

There are also sort of
associations bubbling over

in his mind.

No wonder you look like
Mary Ruth Haslam at times.

It was almost as if he
had too much information

and he couldn't get
it out quickly enough.

His parting words
to me were-- we

looked into each other's
eyes, and he said, one day

you'll be as great as I am.

And that was a
wonderful compliment.

And what an aspiration to have.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Before he encounters
the scientists,

Daniel is making one last stop.

Inspired by Rain Man,
he's in Las Vegas

to see if he can use his amazing
memory to beat the house.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

For someone who hates
crowds and flashing lights,

it's an unsettling
kind of place.

I haven't actually been
in a casino before.

I play cards with
friends sometimes.

They don't like playing with me.

In Blackjack, the dealer
has the advantage.

And even for a card counter,
it still comes down to chance.

It was actually very
hard to concentrate

because the bright lights,
the noise, the atmosphere,

a strange mixture of tension
and excitement all in one.

Daniel is playing two round
with eight decks each.

That's over 400 cards to
keep track of at once.

Round one is a disaster.

Daniel's chips are
disappearing fast.

And memory alone just
isn't giving him an edge.

Eventually he changes strategy
and follows his instincts.

At the end, I was just relying
on intuition, the imagery

as it flowed into my mind.

At the most unpromising moment,
Daniel decides to gamble.

The house had a 10, which
is a very good card.

And I was given two sevens.

And that's not a good hand.

And it's particularly not
a good hand against a 10.

What I decided to do was split
the sevens, an unusual move.

Statistically speaking,
not the best move,

but something in
my head was telling

me to do that anyway because
of the imagery that I

was experiencing.

And so, I split the
sevens, doubled my bet,

was given a third card.

And it also turned
out to be a seven.

And at this stage,
I wasn't really

sure of the rules of
the game because this

is the first time I've
played Blackjack in a Casino.

So I asked, can
I spit those two?

Then she's surprised.

But she said, sure,
if you want to.

So she splits those.

And so I now have three hands
at one time against a 10.

And the people behind
me are tutting.

And they're saying,
what is he doing?

You know, he's playing
three hands against a 10.

He's splitting
sevens against a 10.

He's crazy.

And then she draws the
remaining cards for each seven.

He hits 21 on his first hand,
and again on his second.

That's two out of two.

Who'd bet against
a hat trick now?

All right!

That's great.

That's three 21s.

His sixth sense proves a winner.

And in one fell swoop,
Daniel squares his losses.

How did you get that?

I don't care if I lose now.

That was fantastic.

But Daniel needs
to stay sharp as he

heads for California and the
showdown that really counts.

At San Diego's Center
for Brain Studies,

he's about to face
a series of tests.

Does he really have some
kind of sixth sense?

An ability with numbers that
goes beyond just memory?

Neuroscientist Professor
Ramachandran and his team

are intrigued by the idea
but have their doubts.

When Rama first
came to me and said,

hey, we've got this math
savant that's coming here,

and he can do four by
four multiplication,

and he can recognize primes,
and he can do division out

to so many decimal places,
I thought, yeah, yeah, yeah,

he's probably faking it.

Or he's got it memorized.

You know, there's all
sorts of techniques.

And I'm very much a
big skeptic of this.

With the pleasantries over,
the testing can begin.

Point two seven to
the power of six.

Oh, can you do it
to power of seven?

Yes.

OK.

one zero four six zero three
five three two zero three.

That's it.

Better than the calculator.

I need to see whether or not
that zero three was correct.

But, you know, I have
a feeling it would be.

31 to the power of six.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

88--

Daniel's jet lag is
wrecking his concentration

and slowing him up.

--seven five zero
three six eight one.

Spectacular.

Daniel has certainly
impressed the scientists

with his ability to calculate.

But they're keeping an
open mind about his method.

OK, here we are
confronted with somebody

who claims to have amazing
computational skills.

And when we tested him
with some simple numbers,

doing a number, two-digit number
like 37 to the power of seven,

very, very quickly he gave
us the accurate answer.

And we did this with
several different numbers.

The question is
how is he doing it?

One possibility
is that Daniel has

trained himself to do super
fast calculations in his head.

As we're about to see, the human
brain can do incredible things.

Believe it or not, an
extraordinary math ability

like Daniel's is something
that ordinary people can learn.

Here in Tokyo,
some schools still

teach the ancient
art of the abacus.

Children start learning
the basic skills aged

four and practice every day.

[SPEAKING JAPANESE]

By the time they're
12, these whiz kids

are fast becoming
human calculators.

To be sure, lessons are
not for the faint-hearted.

Well, I'm sometimes very strict.

So some child cries perhaps.

Or sometimes I hit them.

But they keep coming here.

I hope they are happy.

But when they are
training, they never

have a smile on their faces.

Nevertheless, eight
years of hard slog

can produce
jaw-dropping results.

12-year-old [? Kote ?]
Kazuka is top of the class.

[SPEAKING JAPANESE]

I practice two
hours on week days

and 10 hours on the weekend.

I want to become the
national champion.

Along with the
other high flyers,

he can now do huge calculations
with a purely imaginary abacus,

manipulating nothing
but thin air.

Children like this shows
that, with enough practice,

super fast mental
calculation is possible.

Hi.

Hi.

[SPEAKING JAPANESE]

Yet Daniel insists
he's not doing

this kind of conscious
calculation at all.

He says the answers come
to him spontaneously

out of his mental imagery.

Rama and his team are finding
it hard to trip Daniel up.

But they're not
finished with him yet.

If Daniel's descriptions
of his numbers are real,

then they should
also be consistent.

Rama asks Daniel to model some
of his numbers with Play-doh,

but doesn't tell him that
he'll be retested the next day.

It's hard to imagine him
having memorized shapes.

The question is, are
they the same shapes?

So we can actually
compare that now.

That's two four two.

Now let's see is
two four two today.

Overall, there's a
remarkable similarity.

That's very interesting.

Let's take 58.

Again, same story, very similar,
same color, same shape, but not

exactly the same.

810 from today.

810 from yesterday.

And again, it's a
very precise shape.

So, the general
impression is he seems

to be producing the same
shapes consistently.

Daniel has cruised
the consistency test.

But Rama and his team are still
dubious that Daniel reacts

emotionally to certain numbers.

I was a little bit mean.

And I played a trick on Daniel.

He said he loved pi
because it was beautiful.

It was just this
wonderful special shape.

Well, if it's so
beautiful for him,

and he normally gets this
wonderful warm reaction

from pi, I thought
that I would show him

something that initially would
look like pi on the surface--

3.14-- and tweak
it a little bit.

Throw in numbers like six,
which he doesn't like.

The small electrodes
attached to Daniel's fingers

are like a lie detector.

They'll measure any emotional
response, good or bad.

So if Daniel is shown a
number that he really loves,

there should be a
clear-cut signal.

So sure enough, I showed him
this bastardized version of pi.

And we saw this very nice
warm, a galvanic skin response.

And then all-- and it jumped up.

And then all of a
sudden it jumped again.

And as he was
scanning it, we kept

getting another jolt, and
another jolt, and another jolt.

And it wouldn't stop.

And afterwards I
was asking him, well

what's going on in your head
when you're seeing that?

And he said, well, you know,
here is this beautiful number

pi that I love.

And I see it.

And then, as I'm looking at
the landscape, all of a sudden

there's a pit where
it's not supposed to be.

And you know, this
mountain is missing.

And it's really-- it's wrong.

And how could you do that
to something so beautiful?

And you know, while
it was a little bit

mean to do that
to him, it really

shows the point that he does
have some sense of emotion

associated with these numbers
because the skin response was

off the charts.

It was something
you just can't fake.

These are the
things, specifically,

that are showing me
he's not bullshitting,

and he's not scamming.

Even the mistakes
that Daniel is making

are the mistakes that
tell me, you know what?

This is legit.

A faker wouldn't be doing this.

So if Daniel is
for real, how is he

able to do such
huge calculations

without any conscious effort?

When you did this
computation in your head,

what exactly was
going on in your head?

What were you doing?

I see an image in my head.

And that image starts to change.

It starts to almost like evolve.

It's quite vague at first.

As I'm looking at it, it
becomes clearer and clearer

over a time.

And then from that landscape,
I can read the digits out.

So it sort of
gradually crystallizes.

Yes.

In a multiplication,
the two numbers

hover before him
as distinct shapes.

The gap in between makes a
third shape, which Daniel

experiences as a new number--

the correct answer.

He's doing math, but he
doesn't even know it.

When it comes to
numbers, it seems

that Daniel's brain really is
doing something extraordinary.

I'm blown away.

--something the scientists
can't yet get a handle on.

This could be the
linchpin that spawns off

a new field of research.

But we still had one
last test for Daniel.

Daniel is now flying to Iceland
for his ultimate challenge.

We've given him a week
to learn a totally

new language from
scratch and then go live

on national television.

Even the locals say
that Icelandic is

confusing and unpronounceable.

The difficulty is the
grammar, I would say.

But we have funny sounds, where
you have word in the middle

like [SPEAKING ICELANDIC]
[SNORTING] a sound like that.

With the clock ticking, Daniel
badly needs some lessons.

But his teacher
doesn't seem hopeful.

There is a myth that it's
impossible to learn Icelandic.

So the foreigners that I get to
teach, they have this feeling.

This like he would say,
impossible, impossible for a

human to learn this in a week.

Just [SPEAKING ICELANDIC].

That's the Icelandic
word for impossible.

In a colloquial speak,
if a native speech

is different from--

Daniel's brain power
may have met its limits.

First when you get into a new
language, it's like a buzz.

[BUZZING] That's what you hear.

You don't hear words.

You just hear [BURBLING].

And for the ear, it takes
time to adjust and tune in.

You're trying to
find the sounds.

[SPEAKING ICELANDIC]

It's one thing to learn
the language, to speak it,

to be able to produce it, to
actually talk with somebody.

Comprehension, actually
listening to the language

and understanding it,
that's something else

because it takes
time for the ear

to actually get used to the
totally different sounds.

[SPEAKING ICELANDIC]

With a day to go before
Daniel's live chat show,

his teacher's early doubts
are turning to amazement.

He was like a vacuum cleaner.

I can see it.

He was sucking up the words.

And he was just putting
it in his brain.

Little by little,
hour by hour, I'm

just beginning to
tune in and hear

more and more of the
language and understand

more and more of it.

It's one thing to chat
with your teacher.

Speaking live to a quarter
of a million people

is the real test.

I have no idea what will
come out tomorrow night.

If he gets too stressed,
nothing's going to come out.

The seven days
are up, and Daniel

is making last-minute
preparations

before he goes live on air.

[SPEAKING ICELANDIC]

(WHISPERING) OK, tell
me when to go on.

[SPEAKING ICELANDIC]

[SPEAKING ICELANDIC]

[SPEAKING ICELANDIC]

How well has Daniel
managed to speak Icelandic

after just a week of learning
the language from scratch?

[SPEAKING ICELANDIC]

Astonishingly, it looks like
Daniel has pulled it off.

[SPEAKING ICELANDIC]

I was amazed.

He was responding
to our questions.

He did understand
them very well.

And I thought that his
grammar was very good.

[SPEAKING ICELANDIC]

We're very proud
of our language.

And that someone is able
to speak it after only one

week, that's just great.

OK.

[SPEAKING ICELANDIC]

So Daniel is definitely unique.

I would say him as a genius.

And for me, I will never ever
get in touch with a person

or a student as gifted as he is.

Because it's almost beyond--

it's not human.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

There is no doubt that
abilities like Daniel's are

extremely rare.

Well-known authority on
savants, Dr. Darold Treffert,

has spent a lifetime studying
the Rain Man phenomenon

and is in no doubt
where to rank Daniel.

My estimate is
there are probably

fewer than 50 such
people living worldwide.

I think Daniel's ability
is at a prodigious level

because it would be
spectacular if that

were to be seen in any of us.

It would be spectacular.

Equally though, Daniel has been
blessed with almost miraculous

good fortune.

The line between profound
talent and profound disability

seems really a
surprisingly thin one.

The way Daniel can
describe his inner world

is giving scientists a
window into the brain

that they've never had.

But the truth is, their
journey of exploration

is only just beginning.

The bigger question
is whether we all

have some of those
abilities within us.

And that is what I refer
to as the little Rain

Man within each of us.

What I do, it isn't--

I don't think it's supernatural.

I don't think it's something
that can't be explained.

Who knows?

There may be abilities here
that everyone can perhaps

tap into in some way.

Savant syndrome
is challenging us

to think in new ways
about intelligence

and what intelligence is.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Medical history is
made next on Five,

as doctors operate on the
woman with the 14 stone tumor.