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)