Free Struck by Genius: How a Brain Injury Made Me a Mathematical Marvel by Jason Padgett, Maureen Ann Seaberg Page B

history, given its organic nature and the simplicity of the math behind it. However, it wasn’t until the powerful computers of the late twentieth century were able to plot millions of results that anyone could see it in all its complexity. Still, fractals can be seen in everything from ancient carpets from the Far East to Islamic tile work to Western stained-glass windows. In Mandelbrot’s TED talk, he mentioned that even the Eiffel Tower in Paris had a fractal aspect to it. He suggested that its creator, Gustave Eiffel, was “intuitively” familiar with fractals. Had artists and architects through the ages seen the things I was now seeing? I knew that before my injury, I had noticed repeating patterns in the ragged edges of coastlines and in ice crystals, but now I was seeing repetitive geometric images in my own mind. Learning about fractals and the Mandelbrot set validated my belief that my new visions were giving me a firsthand look at the secrets of the universe. And yet this breakthrough, this glimmer of hope, still happened in darkness, behind the blankets I’d tacked up to my windows.
    One month turned into one year, a year into two, two years into three, my darkened hovel lit only by the persistent, incandescent visions in my mind, the TV, and the computer monitor. Had someone peered in, he or she would have seen a man very much alone in his thoughts and research, a hermit who had almost no connection to the outside world. After three years, I’d given up hope my brother would ever return. I was missing now too, in my own way, having turned deep inside myself. It was hard to tell if I’d emerge from this self-imposed exile, but I was too obsessed with these new patterns in the universe to really care. This was my life now—I was drawn deep into the infinite and fractal spiral of my own mind.
    Interruptions from the outside world were few and far between. My visits from Megan were always a high point, but my main companions in my seclusion were my memories, the TV, and the computer. They offered a safe connection to the outside world. My viewing and surfing habits were quite different than they’d been before, however. While I’d always had an interest in science fiction, I had never turned my attention to pure science. I used to watch football every Sunday and make a real occasion of it, popping corn and camping out on the sofa for hours with family and friends. Now I didn’t care at all about my favorite teams. I found myself obsessed with any programming having to do with scientific research. Science fiction remained an interest too, but I was now more curious about the reality of science than the fantasy, with one exception.
    I would set the alarm for three o’clock each morning, though sometimes I was already—or still—up, to watch my favorite TV show,
Farscape.
An Australian program that lasted four seasons, it featured the adventures of a character called John Crichton, an astronaut. He was part of a group trying to escape from corrupt authorities, called Peacekeepers. Crichton had accidentally flown through a wormhole and wanted to make his way back to Earth. At one point, to help Crichton get home, aliens implanted in his brain the ability to do higher math and physics. I was hooked. I had no delusions that my new abilities came from aliens, but like my hero, I was suddenly overwhelmed by what I knew and understood.
    I too felt like a stranger in a strange land trying to find his way back home. That character, with whom I felt I had so much in common, was my only friend during a very lonely time. I was devastated when the series was canceled.
    Then one night, about three years into my isolation, in the blue glow of the television, I stumbled on a program about a man named Daniel Tammet—a synesthete and autistic savant from England who was able to recite pi from memory to 22,514 places. This was even better than my scuttled hero John Crichton because Tammet was a real human being and he was