Quote

Fischer, the great American chess champion, famously said, 'Chess is life.' I would say, 'Pi is life.'

Daniel Tammet

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Daniel Tammet
Age: 45
Born: 1979
Born: January 31
Computer Scientist
Esperantist
Poet
Writer
London
England
Daniel Paul Corney
Champion
Chess
American
Great
Would
Life
Famously
Fischer

More quotes by Daniel Tammet

Image
Every culture has contributed to maths just as it has contributed to literature. It's a universal language numbers belong to everyone.
Daniel Tammet
Image
No relationship is without its difficulties and this is certainly true when one or both of the persons involved has an autistic spectrum disorder. Even so, I believe what is truly essential to the success of any relationship is not so much compatibility, but love. When you love someone, virtually anything is possible.
Daniel Tammet
Image
The human brain is like a memory system that records every thing that happens to us and makes intelligent predictions based on those experiences.
Daniel Tammet
Image
Why learn a number like pi to so many decimal places? The answer I gave then as I do now is that pi is for me an extremely beautiful and utterly unique thing. Like the Mona Lisa or a Mozart symphony, pi is its own reason for loving it.
Daniel Tammet
Image
I recited Pi to 22,514 decimal points in five hours and nine minutes. I was able to do this because of weeks of study, aided by the unusual synaesthesic way my mind perceives numbers as complex multidimensional coloured and textured shapes.
Daniel Tammet
Image
It was hard for me to find my voice because I was, for so long, absorbed in my own world.
Daniel Tammet
Image
I changed my name because it didn't fit with the way I saw myself.
Daniel Tammet
Image
There is no such thing as an average person. They really are guidelines for people to grapple with the unknown, and we can always surprise expectations.
Daniel Tammet
Image
I'm inconsistent because I'm human.
Daniel Tammet
Image
When I multiply numbers together, I see two shapes. The image starts to change and evolve, and a third shape emerges. That's the answer. It's mental imagery. It's like maths without having to think.
Daniel Tammet
Image
My mother is not a model. She is not perfect. That awareness is part of learning to love someone. Predicting the actions of someone is an act of love. We persist, even when we get it wrong. That's the beauty of love.
Daniel Tammet
Image
Logic obviously is important. You need to be able to figure things out, to go to the end of a particular problem. But intuition is very important because it references things that logic alone cannot.
Daniel Tammet
Image
When I achieved the European record for reciting pi in 2004, this captured the imagination of Professor Simon Baron-Cohen in Cambridge and he finally diagnosed me with Asperger's that year.
Daniel Tammet
Image
My autism is a very mild form. It was diagnosed at the age of 25, partly because it wasn't diagnosable as a teenager (this is Asperger's syndrome, specifically). But there were certainly traits within that condition, within the autism spectrum in general, especially at the high functioning end, that I think are best looked at as pluses.
Daniel Tammet
Image
I certainly have routines in my day-to-day life that are important to me and still give me feelings of security and control, but the capacity to break out of them every so often as I travel has given me a second wind.
Daniel Tammet
Image
My algebra was relatively poor. I found it very difficult to use equations that substituted numbers - to which I had a synesthetic and emotional response - for letters, to which I had none. It was because of this that I decided not to continue math at Advanced level, but chose to study history, French and German instead.
Daniel Tammet
Image
When I was a child, my behavior was far from being what most people would label 'intelligent.' It was often limited, repetitive and anti-social. I could not do many of the things that most people take for granted, such as looking someone in the eye or deciphering a person's body language, and only acquired these skills with much effort over time.
Daniel Tammet
Image
I know from my own experience that there is much more to 'intelligence' than an IQ number. In fact, I hesitate to believe that any system could really reflect the complexity and uniqueness of one person's mind, or meaningfully describe the nature of his or her potential.
Daniel Tammet
Image
I have tried to be more flexible, but I always end up feeling more uncomfortable. Retaining a sense of control is really important. I like to do things in my own time, and in my own style, so an office with targets and bureaucracy just wouldn't work.
Daniel Tammet
Image
37 is a lumpy number, a bit like porridge. Six is very small and dark and cold, and whenever I was little trying to understand what sadness is I would imagine myself inside a number six and having that experience of cold and darkness. Similarly, number four is a shy number.
Daniel Tammet