He is mesmerised by simple things that most people don’t even notice such as raindrops falling on a puddle. Padgett too feels like he is a different person than he was before. “When I look back the abysmal person that I was in the past, I just don’t see how I existed on that level.” “I’m a completely different person,” says Simmons. The two men who attacked him that fateful September night were never convicted despite Padgett identifying them and pressing charges.
He is aiming to help others who have had unique or rare/interesting lives by getting their stories published or made into movies. Since his diagnosis, Padgett has published a book about his experience called Struck by Genius, he’s toured the world telling people his story and educating them about maths. Padgett was formally diagnosed with acquired savant syndrome and a form of synaesthesia. “They found that I had access to parts of the brain that we don’t have conscious access to and also the visual cortex was working in conjunction with the part of the brain that does mathematics, which obviously makes sense,” says Padgett.īrogaard’s hypotheses turned out to be true.
The researchers then watched which parts of his brain lit up in response. While in the MRI scanner, hundreds of equations, including fake ones, flashed on a screen in front of Padgett’s eyes.
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To test these ideas, Brogaard brought Padgett to the Brain Research Unit of Aalto University in Helsinki, where he underwent a series of brain scans. “The very first thing I would want to do is get her shoes off, get her into clean clothes, wash her hands.”īut while Padgett was experiencing all these negative consequences from his attack, something incredible was happening too. “When she would come over I would obsessively wash my hands and clean,” he says. The OCD had made Padgett irrationally afraid of germs, which had a knock-on effect on his daughter who would come to stay with him amidst custody negotiations with his ex-partner.
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“I just remember nailing blankets and towels over all the windows in the house… I remember actually using this spray foam and gluing the front door shut.” In Jason's case, he became increasingly afraid of the outside world and would only leave his house to stock up on food. He had sustained a traumatic brain injury, which can bring on obsessive compulsive disorder - OCD. “They gave me a shot of pain medication and sent me home,” he remembers.īut once home, Padgett’s behaviour changed quickly and dramatically. Padgett staggered to a hospital across the street where he was told he had concussion and a bleeding kidney thanks to a punch to the gut. The next thing I knew I was on my knees and everything was spinning and I didn’t know where I was or how I got there.” “And I saw this puff of white light just like someone took a picture. “I heard as much as felt this deep, low-pitched thud as the first guy ran up behind me and smashed me in the back of the head,” he recalls. “Life rotated around girls, partying, drinking, waking up with a hangover and then going out and chasing girls and going out to bars again.” Just under 17 years ago he was living a very different life in Tacoma, Washington. What it’s like during a chemical attackīut the former futon salesman from Alaska hasn’t always had a way with numbers.The maths problem that could bring the world to a halt.He certainly has a rare talent for drawing repeating geometric patterns – known as fractals – by hand. Padgett is so obsessed with maths and understands such complex concepts, he's been called a genius. “It’s not just a perfect square, it’s two to the power of four or four squared but I just like perfect squares… I automatically do that stuff with everything.” “I don’t know why I like perfect squares,” he says. Even something as ordinary as brushing his teeth is governed by mathematics – he turns the tap on and dips his toothbrush into the water 16 times. What you won’t find is any reference to, well, you-know-what. You’ll find everything from the story about the world’s greatest space mission to the truth about whether our cats really love us, the epic hunt to bring illegal fishermen to justice and the small team which brings long-buried World War Two tanks back to life. We’ll be revisiting our most popular features from the last three years in our Lockdown Longreads. So now we’re dedicating a series to help you escape. BBC Future has brought you in-depth and rigorous stories to help you navigate the current pandemic, but we know that’s not all you want to read.
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