jdubb@bucsf.bu.edu (jay dubb) (04/27/91)
I am posting this for a friend of mine who doesn't have access to USENET, so please respond directly to mlevin@jade.tufts.edu. I am looking for pointers to (references, or stories about) cases of mentally deficient people (or, people who have had no mathematical training whatsoever) performing various mathematical feats. I am not interested in performers, who learn tricks etc. to do amazing multiplications - I am looking for things like the following (described in Oliver Sacks' book "The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat"): there is a set of autistic twins, without any schooling, who sit around quoting huge prime numbers at each other. I find this fascinating, and would like some references (preferably to scientific journals, rather than to popular ones, but anything will do) to other cases of this. Does anyone have any opinions/ideas about this phenomenon? Mike Levin (mlevin@jade.tufts.edu)
doug@eris.berkeley.edu (Doug Merritt) (04/29/91)
In article <80305@bu.edu.bu.edu> jdubb@bucsf.bu.edu (jay dubb) writes: > > I am looking for pointers to (references, or stories about) cases >of mentally deficient people (or, people who have had no mathematical >training whatsoever) performing various mathematical feats. Probably the best book on the subject of arithmetical savants is "The Great Mental Calculators -- The Psychology, Methods and Lives of Calculating Prodigies Past and Present" (Steve B. Smith, copyright 1983 Columbia Press). Although the "idiot savants" are in some ways the most interesting, the author debunks as myth several famous cases that are generally reported to be idiots, such as Dase. He, and some other lightning calculators, were uneducated and had rural mannerisms and dialect, leading people to the unwarranted conclusion that they were idiots. There are apparently some retarded (oops, "intelligence-challenged") lightning calculators. Smith opines that there may be both greater genius (Gauss was one such) and retardation represented in these prodigies than in the general populace, and that this may be due to "a tolerance for what ordinary folk find intolerably dull." I find that easy to believe, but in any case this book has more factual information on the general subject than anything else I've ever seen, including correction of widespread myths reported elsewhere, and also quite a bit of detailing of the methods used by varies of these prodigies, where the author was able to uncover them. Quite unusual, quite interesting. Doug P.S. I'm forwarding a copy of this posting to the requested email address. -- -- Doug Merritt doug@eris.berkeley.edu (ucbvax!eris!doug) or uunet.uu.net!crossck!dougm