Did anyone see Dave Letterman last night - he had a savant on...

kick-ass-bob

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Thu Apr-28-05 01:10 PM
Original message

Did anyone see Dave Letterman last night - he had a savant on...

who said there were only 25 in the world.

Dave gave his birthday and the guy told him in a matter of seconds what day of the week it was on and what his 65th birthday will be on (in 2012).

Anyone see him? Quite interesting...

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fob

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Thu Apr-28-05 01:15 PM
Response to Original message

1. Only 25 what? The savant said there were only 25 savants in the world?

How could he possibly know that? At the very least he would have to add a qualifier like, "only 25 known savants".

Did he have any other abilities beside the birthday thing?

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kick-ass-bob

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Thu Apr-28-05 01:19 PM
Response to Reply #1

2. he loves numbers and languages

Edited on Thu Apr-28-05 01:21 PM by kick-ass-bob

he didn't have a lot of time to go into anything else but apparently he is the focus of a show on the Science channel (? - I've never heard of that channel).

I'm sure he meant 25 known savants - he said they figure he got his savant-ness from a seizure and aspargers (sp?). With the latter, he is not so comfortable interacting with people - hence I cut some slack when talking to others.

He said he recited Pi to the 22,500 decimal place with no errors with about 2 weeks practice. It took him 5+ hours to recite it.

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Not_Giving_Up

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Thu Apr-28-05 01:32 PM
Response to Reply #2

7. My son has Asperger's

He can do complicated math problems in his head in seconds, and he's only eleven. The school has fits because he won't show his work on paper though.

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kick-ass-bob

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Thu Apr-28-05 01:34 PM
Response to Reply #7

8. I always did math in my head too.

Not like super genius level or anything, but I got really annoyed having to put stuff down on paper that I would do in my head.

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CJCRANE

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Thu Apr-28-05 01:21 PM
Response to Reply #1

4. Maybe

they can also communicate telepathically with each other...

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CJCRANE

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Thu Apr-28-05 01:20 PM
Response to Original message

3. That's one in 240 million...

definitely one of the mathematical elite.

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CBGLuthier

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Thu Apr-28-05 01:23 PM
Response to Original message

5. Simple enough formula

With enough practice and the ability to do simple math in your head anyone could learn to do this

f = k + <(13*m-1)/5> + D + + - 2*C.

k is the day of the month. Let's use January 29, 2064 as an example. For this date, k = 29.
m is the month number. Months have to be counted specially for Zeller's Rule: March is 1, April is 2, and so on to February, which is 12. (This makes the formula simpler, because on leap years February 29 is counted as the last day of the year.) Because of this rule, January and February are always counted as the 11th and 12th months of the previous year. In our example, m = 11.
D is the last two digits of the year. Because of the month numbering, D = 63 in our example, even though we are using a date from 2064.
C stands for century: it's the first two digits of the year. In our case, C = 20.

http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.calendar.html

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kick-ass-bob

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Thu Apr-28-05 01:28 PM
Response to Reply #5

6. Right. About the Pi thing

he said other people could learn to do that as well, but it would take years to get it where it only took him a couple of weeks.

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MikeDuffy

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Thu Apr-28-05 01:54 PM
Response to Original message

9. We need more critical thinkers, not more memory wizzes.

And anyone of us can strive to develop such skills -- you need not be a "savant".

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kick-ass-bob

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Thu Apr-28-05 02:55 PM
Response to Reply #9

10. that wasn't the point.

Maybe you should watch the show. Scientists are studying him in the show.

The ability was to do it quickly and see things in a different way.

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