Source: The Telegraph
By Rosa Prince, New York
Jason Padgett is one of the world’s few ‘sudden savants’ – able to draw elaborate geometric fractals following a brain injury which changed his life.
A self-proclaimed former “goof” and college dropout has told how he became a maths genius after suffering a traumatic brain injury
Jason Padgett is a “sudden savant” who sees elaborate geometric shapes in every day objects and has the ability to recreate them by hand.
Among his drawings of fractals, the repeating geometric patterns which are the building blocks of everything in the known universe, is a visualisation of Hawking radiation, the substance emitted from a micro black hole, which took him nine months to create.
Experts say there are only about 40 people with acquired savant syndrome in the world.
Unlike other savants, the form of autism which involves extraordinary feats of drawing, memory and mathematical ability from birth – such as those displayed by the Dustin Hoffman character in the 1988 film Rain Man – sudden savants develop their skills later in life, typically after suffering a brain injury.
In Mr Padgett’s case, he has gone from a heavy-drinking shop worker to a maths genius whose life is full of wonder thanks to the amazing patterns he sees in everything from the leaves on the trees outside his window to the cream swirling in his coffee.
Categories: Educational Resources, Europe and Australia, Psychology