Rainman Revisited (rapid mental math)

[Thecla]

In the movie Rainman the autistic savant played by Dustin Hoffman performs a calculation of the square root of 2130 . In less than a second he gives the answer 46.15192304.
Do savants really do this at this speed to 8 decimal places? I was looking thru the internet to see video evidence of speedy calculations by savants , but couldn't find any.

 

[mfb]

They can get 5 to 6 digits very fast. Usually the problems ask for integers and roots where the last integer doesn't need calculations, for a total of 7 digits in the answer, this does not work here. 10 digits would surprise me.
Movies don't have to be very realistic.

 

[dkotschessaa]

Here's a real life case: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/autistic-savant-daniel-tammet-solves-problems-blink-eye/story?id=10759598

What's great about this guy is he is a real proponent of doing research into the area of people with brains like his and wants to know if it's possible to teach others to think the way he does.

http://www.danieltammet.net/

-Dave K

 

[jedishrfu]

There's also the Trachtenberg system of speed math where ordinary people trained in its methods can do very large calculations in their heads an immediately write down the answer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trachtenberg_system

Also kids who've learned chisanbop math, use their fingers as an soroban and can also perform speedy math.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chisanbop

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soroban

 

[Thecla]

I saw the Daniel Trammet video where he talks about synesthesia, but I did not see him do any calculations. I am looking for a video of an autistic person taking a square root of a 4 digit number or multiplying two four digit numbers.

 

[dkotschessaa]

I saw the Daniel Trammet video where he talks about synesthesia, but I did not see him do any calculations. I am looking for a video of an autistic person taking a square root of a 4 digit number or multiplying two four digit numbers.

Have you seen this one?

It's 45 minutes long and I haven't watched the whole thing, so I don't know if it has what you are looking for.

-Dave K