It's not until the very last moment that those sparks tell me what [but] on Earth they machine 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 not even 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 okay, okay five [seven] to the power 4 um 1 1 million yeah [870] [4160] [One] 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 them to divide 13 by 97 Low point one three four zero two zero six That's as far as my calculator. Go friend one eight five eight five six seven You're carrying on [going] on to me to stop off how many points can you do it? [100] million At this point we borrowed a computer that gave us the answer to 32 decimal places Okay, no point 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 for six three Nine one seven five two five you've reached the end of the computers all 100% Amazing when you're pointing to the table and doing shapes with your fingers what what's going on? And I'm seeing the numbers, but I'm not see Straight I'm seeing pictures shapes and patterns Almost like a square that the texture of order drops Ripples almost that's something reflective It's somebody can look [through] almost on italic and Ilana was it a hard clown a bit like a flash It sounds preposterous But if it's true it blows away scientific theory Daniels Brain seems to be doing something almost magical it appears to be doing maths without him actually having to think As if this wasn't enough Daniel is also a wizard with words Para [Colossal] Katya Katya Luscious velvety Meniscus And he knows nine languages and says he could learn to speak [anyone] just a week How can daniel do such enormous calculations [instead] and is it really possible to [learn] the language in just seven days I'm currently a freelance tutor [Daniel] has agreed to be tested by scientists And will 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 Kamala know me too dirty But our journey begins in Oxford in March 2004 Daniel took us by surprise with a dazzling memory stunt the ambition is to remember [pie] to 22,500 decimal places and To recite it in [the] live environment with a vigil [eaters] who will be checking and Making sure obviously that the recitation is collect 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 in food Daniel Reckon he could reel off the first 22 and a half thousand decimal places without [a] mistake 1 for 12 five nine two six five [three] five eight two zero nine seven five two three six four eight zero eight eight one two five nine two five four six point zero zero zero six Nine Five five seven [six-eight] two hours later and Daniel is barely Halfway Absolutely staggering, it's a beautiful to listen to [the] flower numbers. It's beautiful to see the concentration It's always amazing to be in front of one of the world's extraordinary persons Three nine nine five two zero six one four it's almost religious It's quiet recitation numbers Smash Marazzi five six seven zero nine one one zero five one seven two one zero two eight seven four eight [one] five nine after five hours and nine minutes Daniel is nearing the finish line his recall has been flawless please finished yeah Is gobsmacking new Brilliant? Brilliant yes But does this mean [that] Daniel could also have learned by heart? thousands of different calculations, or Does he has 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 [seemed] to have changed something in his brain It's really from that time that I started [to] to see pictures in my mind [images] started to to form intuitively Daniel also began 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 [Saral] was just 10 when he received his [fateful]. Blow me a friend playing baseball I was [a] batter ran the first base. They got through the ball and ball hit on my left side [ahead] 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. They get no treatment or nothing to his surprise Ball and [I'm] soon discovered [that] he could name the day of the week and recall the weather for any date since his accident Number 17 latinate is on a Sunday with sunshine and clear skies june 3rd. 1985 was on a Monday It was hot March 28th 1990s on a Wednesday sunshine second Symmetries [third] next time she was on a winton so much money for [8] miles on a Sunday cloudy, [I] can't explain it [but] his pops right into my head Somehow the circuitry in his brain is computing calendar dates What part of my brain is darkness? [I] don't know Both Orlando and Daniel seem 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 Daniels 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 Daniels turtle amongst her other children Or any of them her memories it turns out are still vivid If you had Daniel's first childhood never have another child because the constant crying Up until now nearly the age of Tori 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 bank I would [of] [yet], and we we resorted to that out of desperation. [did] you like that? Yes, what sort of time? Do you like [the] sort of repetitive me? Yes? Yes [let's] [serve] him The repetition seemed to [soothe] him and that's again a right sort of classic autistic characteristic [I] mean if you if you think back [to] the days when [he] was at primary school with were the teachers at all and Concerned about him. What did they talk about him as if he was different in some way? You know what would happen during break time? think about the capstone remember counting stones and also there was a Set called hopscotch. Yeah, so I would count the numbers on top This was what interested me. [this] is what I would do and nothing else about I know you didn't integrate that well. I remember you walking around the playground and looking at up at the trees I'd walk around the trees and look at the leaves like [allah] [pathan] [son] learn and leaves in the bog There seems to have the complexity within in shapes, and yeah textures that reminds me of you Embers, right? Numbers for me have always been it's like the most real thing for me From the time I was about five I've almost looked through numbers lumps I mean my legs the way I've looked at the world allow me so [I'll] always count things so I'll Look at something and say that looks like 131 [fix-up] what that looks like 52 and Just always thinking that this is how everyone else [experiences] numbers you know that that this is a normal thing He got most pleasure out of just taking the maths books home and lying in his bedroom floor alone Going as far as he could with Numerical problems and just understanding numbers thing much more comfortable in a world of of numbers than people Daniel's obsession with maths is at least part of the explanation phase special ability with numbers The things that he always felt were his friends Because I was so different Mm-Hmm the children who would be bullies didn't know what to do with me you know they didn't know how to teach 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 to adapt to our world Daniel is lucky rare abilities like his usually come with severe mental handicap as part of the price Dane, Bertino is a savant - [but] very different from The one thing his gift is not the maths We knew by two and a half 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] flipside to his talent Chinese language and social skills remain childlike Even as his art becomes richer. He really pays attention to the little my new details But he would put the emotion in 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 changed so that he can [draw] something new How is this remarkable boys seeing the world it would be fascinating to [know] if only he could tell us What makes Daniel different from Sevens like dane, and so extremely valuable to science? Is that he can describe? What's going on inside his head expense numbers in a very visual way using colors texture shape you form sequences for numbers form landscapes in my mind It just happens. It's like having a full dimension One for [XampP'] would [be] very bright very bright And shiny numbers. It's almost like somebody flashing a light in my face you know today It's a very interesting experience number two is kind of like a movement right to left the 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 it's often the absence of anything It's like a whole war or a chasm or like a black hole number nine is the biggest number It's very tall there can be intimidating Daniel says he sees every number up to ten thousand as a distinct shape or image Until recently many researchers would have dismissed this is mumbo Jumbo? But there is now a sound scientific explanation Different parts of our brain are specialized with 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 Duncan less on of Julian Ashes and a researcher at Cambridge University Experiences, synesthesia himself, but is struck by how peculiar it is in Daniel [the] [most] synesthetes what they see is much more abstract for instance I see what almost might be colored flames the sort of a flickering flowing movement But Daniel sees very concrete shapes. Which is quite unusual Is the entire number drifting upwards as it? Julian believes that daniels complex imagery is the key to his gigantic memory When he's recalling a number to twenty two thousand and five hundred digits what he's doing is moving mentally through a synesthetic landscape ineffectively reading the numbers from the landscape But are daniels numbers shapes also the key [to] his maths ability To find out more were sending in to San Diego 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]. We've all these huge skyscrapers It's intimidating for me and over the time. I had this sensation and being surrounded by nine number nine is all around me Can be very [nerve-racking] experience? Seeing objects as numbers as 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 proposed a memory game [Daniel] he wants five minutes to memorize a board with 26 randomly placed pieces And he's offering [ten] bucks for every mistake he makes It's an offer they can't refuse Us having to imagine that it was on a chess board by the sequence of numbers, and then I was experiencing the numbers as imagery Time's up and the heat is on like in there Yeah C6 d 5 they scrutinize daniels positions have trying to find fault for [I] pretty much got it spot on. I think there was one piece. I didn't put on the board It's pretty good [when] Fuller being a nine chess player now with the hustle Do you mind if [we] take the pieces off and test one of you two guys you're you're pretty good jasper? Well like I said, I'm I'm pretty impressed with you I don't know if I can tap with one of you my friend would like to do it But I don't know if I can honestly we can give you as much We can give you an extra few minutes if you really want to study Okay, okay The other guided chess hustler. I take my hat off when he was game he went for it [and] did it I? Was actually impressed personally speaking. He did better than I thought he [would] do I think he made my mistakes For me that's amazing. Ooh a piece that you remembered you remembered in the whitewater. If he's not experiencing the pieces in any distinctive way And yet? He's able to do that. It shows that war memory is really good If you're talking memory though as one man, who is in a league of his own? He's the world's most famous Savant and Daniel's next stop on route to California Daniel's next stop is the one he's been savoring a meeting with the real rain man I'm looking forward to meeting kim peek because he's meant to be amazing He was the guy [that] the main 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 problem and his father a waiting room Nice to meet you Let's walk down here. We can have a line they head off to a quiet [corner] But Daniel can find out more about Kim stupendous memory time [timely] With total photographic memory he remembers everything he's ever read He can tell you the every city in the united states its highways and its area codes and its zip codes and its television stations in his counties And when it was made a state history of any country all the rulers [and] when they served Presidents of this country when they were born their wives their families all of Nasa's accomplishments So when they went up when they came down what they're doing you could talk to you about the bible. He can quote scriptures He can tell you anything about if you want to asking about It seems like everything he reads He maintained and nine months Neuropsychiatry said he said 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 [fourteen] Goodbye [y'all] pain imma Leave and cheyenne, you know that how fast can he mean he reads a page that You and I would read and in three minutes approximately it takes you about [eight] to [ten] seconds He reads left pages left eye right page of the right eye, and that [number] [is] about 98 percent of it go back through here Keep my birth date is January 31st 1979 it wasn't it was a it was [a] Wednesday? [this] year it's a a Saturday returned [2044] on a Sunday What you did Queen Victoria had become great through Sona 1901 Came if Winston Churchill was alive today. Howard. 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 nowhere in 1987 Kim met actor Dustin Hoffman and became the inspiration for the hit movie rain man We went on Hollywood the next morning and Kim spent the day with Dustin and all of his film friends Because it was amazing all the things they asked him and all the things he knew It was just like I had known [lee] before there were so many new things that came out of me Although I'm much older You're still a fine man and to Some of you. Yes, sir. He says you don't have to be handicapped to be different because everybody's different Though all Sorts of associations bubbling over in his mind. No wonder you look like Mary ruth As it was almost as if he had too much information, and he couldn't get it out quickly enough He's parting words to me. Well 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 we'll aspiration to have 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 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 it up by 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 really hard to concentrate because The white light [the] noise the atmosphere a strange mixture tension and excitement all in one Daniel is playing two rounds with eight decks inch that's over 400 cards to keep track of at once Round one is a disaster daniels chips are disappearing fast and memory alone. Just isn't giving him an edge Eventually he changes strategy And follows his instincts the end. I was [just] relying on intuition and dimitri as it flows into my mind at the most on promising Moment Daniel decides to Gamble [the] [house] had a [ten] which the [regel] card and I was given two sevens And that's Nanak would hand and is 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 7th Doubled my bet was given a third card, and it wasn't anatomy a 7 and at this stage I was really sure of the [wards] of the game because this the first time I played blackjack in a casino so [asked] can I split those two Then she's surprised she says sure if you want to so she splits those and so I now have free hands at one time against a 10 and The people behind me at a teen and they're you know they're saying what what is he doing? You know he's so but he's playing free hands against a 10 he's splitting [70] comes 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] second That's two out of two. Who'd bet against the hat trick now That's 321 his sixth sense proves a winner and in one fell swoop Daniel Squares his losses. How did you get [that]? [one] 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 But 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 4x4 multiplication and he can recognize primes and he can do Division out to so many decimal places. I thought yay. [I] 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] 27 to the power of Six oh, can you do to [pump] some? Okay one zero four six zero three five three two zero three That's not Better than the calculator. [I] need to see whether or not that zero three is correct But you know I have a feeling it would be [31] four out of six Daniels jet Lag is wrecking his concentration and slowing him up Seven five seven three six eight spectacular Daniel has certainly impressed the scientists with his ability to calculate, but they're keeping an open mind about his method Okay, 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 2 G [two-digit] number like 37 [^]? 7 Very very quickly gave us the accurate announcer, and we did this [with] several different numbers the question is how was he doing him? 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. Maths ability like daniels is something that ordinary people can learn Here in tokyo some schools still teach the ancient art the abacus Children start [learning] the basic skills aged [four] and practice every [day] like me 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 bare strict so some child cry perhaps or sometimes I hit them but they keep Coming [here]. I hope they're happy, but when they're training they never have a smile on their faces nevertheless eight years of hard slog can produce jaw-dropping results 12 year Old Kota Cazuca is top of the class I Practiced two hours on weekdays, and then now it's on the weekend. I want to become a national champion I Along with the other high [fliers]. He can now do huge calculations with a purely imaginary abacus manipulating nothing, but the thin air Children like this show us that with enough practice superfast mental calculation is possible hi Hey, Ma, Ma Yeah, 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 of finding it hard to trip daniel up, but they're not finished with him yet If daniels descriptions of his numbers are real then they should also be consistent [Ramin] 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 shape so we can actually compare that now? That's two for two Now let's see is two for 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 very precise shape So 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 pie 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 pie I thought that I would show him something that initially would look like pie 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 Daniels 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 You know warm the 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 what's going on in your head when you were seeing that and he said well you know here's 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 and it's really it's wrong and how could you do that something so beautiful and 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 this is legit a faker wouldn't be doing this So if Daniel is the real how is he able to do such huge calculations without any conscious effort? You did this computation in your head what exactly was going on in your head I see an image in my [head] and That image starts to change 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 from that landscape I can read the digits out [sort] [of] gradually crystallized. Yes In a multiplication the two numbers hover before him has distinct shapes The Gap in between makes a third shape which Daniel experiences as a new number The correct answer he's doing there, but he doesn't even know it When it comes to numbers it seems that Daniels 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 difficult bit is the grammar [I] would say but we have funny sounds where he had no remember [that] never do like a sound like this with the clock ticking Daniel Badly needs some lessons But his teacher doesn't seem hopeful there was a minute, but it's impossible to know an iCelandic So the four is that I get to tate's they have this feeling. It's like he would say impossible Impossible thoughtful for a human to learn this in a week just [collect] That's the icelandic word for impossible. You know colloquial. Speak if a knife is Daniels Brain Power may have met its limits First when you get into a new language is like a person You just that's what you're here You don't [hear] would you just hit a little bit a little bit and for the ear It takes time to adjust and tune in and trying to find the sounds if you're just like me, it's one thing to Learn the language to speak it to be able to produce it as touchy you know talk with somebody comprehension actually listening to the language and Understanding it that's that something else because takes time fully here to actually get used to the totally different sounds Gonna Pop gone back in One Day Queer tax taxes With a day to go before daniels live chat show his teachers early doubts returning to amazement It was like a watching cleaner. I can see you were sucking up the words and he was this putting it in his raid 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 you get too stressed nothing's Gonna come out The seven days are up and Daniel is making last-minute preparations before. He goes live on air just [given] Okay, tell me rent Minton Ultra-left minions [where] to Milan on [isLa] de La Reina Tolliver Daniel tomato, eastland school nestor minuteness, welcoming welcoming retinue him [genki] a letter your fell back a sense carefully make e so fat leg [oh] [Yeah], Air [Feta] [Lyra] Um how co telkom Vega y, aca [Iceland] Inca [Dalla] is let's go air ah So I eat them enzo Anda Or yang ff isn't School Ozma How well has Daniel managed to speak icelandic after just a week of learning the language from [scratch]? [yes] [lending] go? Darla a key mouth Ride Astonishingly it looks like Daniel has pulled it off [Miata] Darla is [some] school mecha standing. Go I was amazed He was responding to our questions. He did understand them very well and I thought that his grammar was very good Malanga Saya so my header We are very proud of our language, and then that someone is able to speak it after only one week. That's first is great Okay, Papa This is really sustained. Ellis is definitely unique. I would say [mastered] genius and for me I will never ever get in touch with a person or a student ask if that that he is because it's almost Beyond its [its] It's not human There's no doubt that abilities like Daniels are extremely rare World Authority on [Sevens] Dr.. Darrell Trafford has spent a lifetime studying the rain man phenomenon and Is in no doubt where to rank Daniel? My us two minutes are probably fewer than 50 such people living world one I think [daniels] ability is at a prodigious level because it would be spectacular Pair were to be seen in any of us would be spectacular Equally though Daniel has been blessed with almost miraculous. Good fortune there lying between profound talent and Profound disability seems really and surprisingly finland The way Daniel can describe his inner world is giving scientists a window into the brain that they've never heard But the truth is the 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 you can actually [think] it's something I can't be explained who knows there may be [abilities] head everyone can perhaps tap into in some way Savant syndrome is challenging us to think in new Ways about intelligence and what intelligence is you
Ok so I don't wanna be the party pooper but there have been several controversies over Daniel's alleged savant abilities. Apparently he's just a memory guru who uses techniques like memory palaces to remember lots of information - Impressive? yes. Savant? no.
If you look up his website on Wayback Machine, you'll see what I'm on about.
Here's what his website looked like in 2001: https://web.archive.org/web/20010503131159/http://www.danieltammet.com:80/
FYI this is actually from 2005
Interesting. I seem to have the opposite condition.
August 22nd 1982 it was hot.
Why is it that these people are never doing research?
Thanks for the link. I find synesthesia intersecting- but I was actually more impressed with the abacus kids. Made me want to buy one and see if I could start doing calculations visually.
There are people like this everywhere on earth, they are just born in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was lucky.
I read a book about him called born on a blue day many years ago. Very interesting
Nice! Would love to be his classmate and ask for his assignment.