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Like works of literature, mathematical ideas help expand our circle of empathy, liberating us from the tyranny of a single, parochial point of view. Numbers, properly considered, make us better people.

Daniel Tammet

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Daniel Tammet
Age: 45
Born: 1979
Born: January 31
Computer Scientist
Esperantist
Poet
Writer
London
England
Daniel Paul Corney
Helping
View
Expand
Ideas
Works
Circle
Better
Single
Properly
Make
Views
Empathy
Like
Numbers
Circles
People
Literature
Mathematical
Help
Tyranny
Parochial
Point
Considered
Liberating

More quotes by Daniel Tammet

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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
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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.
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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.
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Often autism is portrayed in the media as a very negative condition, as something that prevents somebody from communicating or from socializing or from being able to have any kind of normal, happy life.
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Moment by moment throughout our lifetime, our brains hum with the work of making meaning: weaving together many thousands of threads of information into all manner of thoughts, feelings, memories, and ideas.
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I'm inconsistent because I'm human.
Daniel Tammet
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Fischer, the great American chess champion, famously said, 'Chess is life.' I would say, 'Pi is life.'
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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
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I had eventually come to understand that friendship was a delicate, gradual process that mustn’t be rushed or seized upon but allowed and encouraged to take its course over time. I pictured it as a butterfly, simultaneously beautiful and fragile, that once afloat belonged to the air and any attempt to grab at it would only destroy it.
Daniel Tammet
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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.
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It was hard for me to find my voice because I was, for so long, absorbed in my own world.
Daniel Tammet
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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
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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
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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
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I'm not sure I'm the only savant with high IQ or with an above average IQ. Again, it may just be that we don't know very many of the others.
Daniel Tammet
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Every culture has contributed to maths just as it has contributed to literature. It's a universal language numbers belong to everyone.
Daniel Tammet
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I changed my name because it didn't fit with the way I saw myself.
Daniel Tammet
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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
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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
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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