You may have heard of Daniel Tammet. He remembered 22 514 decimals of pi in 2004. This is still the European record. Daniel also took part in a famous show on Discovery Channel, where he quickly learned to speak Icelandic, performed mental arithmetic and met the savant that inspired the writers of the movie Rainman.

Daniel competed at two World Memory Championships, before changing his last name. At the time his name was Daniel Corney. He placed 12th and 4th and is ranked no 59 in the world. Daniel says he’s an autistic savant. I am not an autistic savant, nor are, as far as I know, any of the others ranked ahead of Daniel. Some are undoubtedly nerds, but otherwise completely normal people…