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Thread ID: 66147	2006-02-13 01:25:00	Way OT: Mental Imagary	Winston001 (3612)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
429824	2006-02-13 01:25:00	Just a matter of curiosity. A while ago there was a TV program about savants - people who remember everything they read, can calculate pi to 100 places in their heads etc. One chap described numbers as having colours, and possibly even a taste. He didn't just calculate in his head, he saw the numbers and their colours which helped the calculation. I realised that while I don't see coloured numbers in my mind, I do see them in a very definite pattern. Basically starting in a clock spiral but then going to a ladder up to 20, down to 26, up to 30 and so on to infinity. So when I imagine numbers I see their position and jump across to another part of the spiral for the sum of two numbers. Alas alac, this has been no help to me at all in life. :D Anyway, people at work were astonished because they don't work this way. So I'm wondering how you see numbers - or indeed anything else in you mind's eye.	Winston001 (3612)
429825	2006-02-13 01:37:00	The guy I think you're talking about would see an entire landscape for pi, so it was a matter of recalling a landscape. This obviously, is a lot easier than remembering a sequence of relatively random numbers. To answer your question, I don't really see numbers like that. Most of the time, things related to maths just kinda click.	DangerousDave (697)
429826	2006-02-13 01:44:00	Crazy. Anyhow, My maths is as bad as my spelling, Though when I was back in School it was my strongest skill, I could just look at the equation and I knew the answer and could write it down, No issue at all. Then it would be case of working backwards to see how the answer related to the question. Now equations just look like scribble, parts of the brain long unused turn to mush, Though I would like to think if I called those skills back into use that once warmed up I would be right back where I was. Unless I really am getting stupider as I get older, :lol: Another 31 years and I'll be a cabbage....	Metla (12)
429827	2006-02-13 01:59:00	The guy in the tv programme had what they call synaesthesia (or synesthesia). There's a good article on Wikipedia here: en.wikipedia.org	lokinz (6444)
429828	2006-02-13 02:26:00	Reminds me of the famous story of when G H Hardy was visiting Ramanujan in hospital and remarked that the number of the taxi he had arrived in which was 1729 was uninteresting. Ramanujan immediatly disagreed and said it was the smallist number that can be represented in two different ways as the sum of two cubes.	Dally (6292)
429829	2006-02-13 02:46:00	The guy in the tv programme had what they call synaesthesia (or synesthesia). There's a good article on Wikipedia here: en.wikipedia.org Thats it. Thanks, I couldn't remember. :thumbs:	Winston001 (3612)
429830	2006-02-13 02:50:00	Of course the most famous "savants" of this type had only the one ability. The full name of the condition was idiot savant. Do they all beome lawyers? :D	Graham L (2)
429831	2006-02-13 03:02:00	Lawyers are not savants... Theyre just plain idiots :p	bob_doe_nz (92)
429832	2006-02-13 06:37:00	I used to work as an artist. Strange thing is I trained myself to go out, sit in front of a scene for 5 minutes then go home and paint the thing in photorealistic detail just by picturing it in my mind... like closing your eyes and seeing the whole detailed image as if you had your eyes open. Maybe I should have done paint by numbers, then I would have been far better at maths. :D PS wouldn't call my 'talent' any form of savant... possibly just idiot :xmouth:	Shortcircuit (1666)
429833	2006-02-13 06:44:00	When I read text, I often read it in Morse Code . Is that unusual? . -- . . . . . - . / . . / . - . . . - - . . / - . - . . - - -- . . -- / . . / . - . . . - - . . / . . - / . . - . / -- --- . - . . . . . / - . - . --- - . . . . - . - . - / . . . . . / - . . . . . - - / . . - - . . . - . . . . . - . - . - . . . . -- . . Seems quite normal to me .	godfather (25)
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