2012-04-28

Synesthesia, Savant Syndrome: Jason Padgett, A Real ‘Beautiful Mind'

Brain-damaged college dropout became maths genius after attack | Mail Online

A college dropout has been hailed a unique maths genius - after his brain was damaged in a brutal attack by muggers.

Jason Padgett, 41, was left concussed after he was ambushed outside a karaoke club and repeatedly kicked in the head.

Now, wherever he looks, he sees mathematical formulas and turns them into stunning, intricate diagrams he can draw by hand.

He is the only person in the world known to have the skill and experts say it was caused by his head injury.

Real ‘Beautiful Mind’: College Dropout Became Mathematical Genius After Mugging (PHOTOS) - ABC News



“I see bits and pieces of the Pythagorean theorem everywhere,” he said. “Every single little curve, every single spiral, every tree is part of that equation.”
The diagrams he draws are called fractals and Padgett can draw a visual representation of the formula Pi, that infinite number that begins with 3.14.

Jason Padgett's drawing of Pi.

A scan of Padgett’s brain showed damage that was forcing his brain to overcompensate in certain areas that most people don’t have access to, Brogaard explained. The result was Padgett was now an acquired savant, meaning brilliant in a specific area.

“Savant syndrome is the development of a particular skill, that can be mathematical, spatial, or autistic, that develop to an extreme degree that sort of makes a person super human,” Brogaard said.



Synesthesia, Savant Syndrome, Jason Padgett, Beautiful mind 314, Island of genius - YouTube



This is a hand drawn fractal. Jason Padgett, a mathematician with synesthesia (a condition where the brain interprets numbers as shapes) draws a fractal of space time at the Planck Particle size frame and at a certain frequency. Then wave equations (uncertainty) make the drawing warp and stretch as space time does from the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle.