Struck by Genius

Struck by Genius PDF Author: Jason Padgett
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0544045645
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
From head trauma to scientific wonder—a “deeply absorbing . . . fascinating” true story of acquired savant syndrome (Entertainment Weekly). Twelve years ago, Jason Padgett had never made it past pre-algebra. But a violent mugging forever altered the way his brain worked. It turned an ordinary math-averse student into an extraordinary young man with a unique gift to see the world as no one else does: water pours from the faucet in crystalline patterns, numbers call to mind distinct geometric shapes, and intricate fractal patterns emerge from the movement of tree branches, revealing the intrinsic mathematical designs hidden in the objects around us. As his ability to understand physics skyrocketed, the “accidental genius” developed the astonishing ability to draw the complex geometric shapes he saw everywhere. Overcoming huge setbacks and embracing his new mind, Padgett “gained a vision of the world that is as beautiful as it is challenging.” Along the way he fell in love, found joy in numbers, and spent plenty of time having his head examined (The New York Times Book Review). Illustrated with Jason’s stunning, mathematically precise artwork, his singular story reveals the wondrous potential of the human brain, and “an incredible phenomenon which points toward dormant potential—a little Rain Man perhaps—within us all” (Darold A. Treffert, MD, author of Islands of Genius: The Bountiful Mind of the Autistic, Acquired, and Sudden Savant). “A tale worthy of Ripley’s Believe It or Not! . . . This memoir sends a hopeful message to families touched by brain injury, autism, or neurological damage from strokes.” —Booklist “How extraordinary it is to contemplate the bizarre gifts that might lie within all of us.” —People

Struck by Genius

Struck by Genius PDF Author: Jason Padgett
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0544045645
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Get Book

Book Description
From head trauma to scientific wonder—a “deeply absorbing . . . fascinating” true story of acquired savant syndrome (Entertainment Weekly). Twelve years ago, Jason Padgett had never made it past pre-algebra. But a violent mugging forever altered the way his brain worked. It turned an ordinary math-averse student into an extraordinary young man with a unique gift to see the world as no one else does: water pours from the faucet in crystalline patterns, numbers call to mind distinct geometric shapes, and intricate fractal patterns emerge from the movement of tree branches, revealing the intrinsic mathematical designs hidden in the objects around us. As his ability to understand physics skyrocketed, the “accidental genius” developed the astonishing ability to draw the complex geometric shapes he saw everywhere. Overcoming huge setbacks and embracing his new mind, Padgett “gained a vision of the world that is as beautiful as it is challenging.” Along the way he fell in love, found joy in numbers, and spent plenty of time having his head examined (The New York Times Book Review). Illustrated with Jason’s stunning, mathematically precise artwork, his singular story reveals the wondrous potential of the human brain, and “an incredible phenomenon which points toward dormant potential—a little Rain Man perhaps—within us all” (Darold A. Treffert, MD, author of Islands of Genius: The Bountiful Mind of the Autistic, Acquired, and Sudden Savant). “A tale worthy of Ripley’s Believe It or Not! . . . This memoir sends a hopeful message to families touched by brain injury, autism, or neurological damage from strokes.” —Booklist “How extraordinary it is to contemplate the bizarre gifts that might lie within all of us.” —People

Islands of Genius

Islands of Genius PDF Author: Darold A. Treffert
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
ISBN: 1849058733
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
In this fascinating book, Dr. Treffert looks at what we know about savant syndrome, and at new discoveries that raise interesting questions about the hidden brain potential within us all. He looks both at how savant skills can be nurtured, and how they can help the person who has them, particularly if that person is on the autism spectrum.

Genius of Place

Genius of Place PDF Author: Justin Martin
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0306818817
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 494

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Book Description
This definitive, first full-scale biography of Olmsted--famed designer of New York's Central Park--reveals him also as a brilliant political and social reformer.

Sudden Genius?

Sudden Genius? PDF Author: Andrew Robinson
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191624926
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
The highly admired scientist Linus Pauling, a double Nobel laureate in chemistry and peace, was once asked by a student. 'Dr Pauling, how do you have so many good ideas?' Pauling thought for a moment and replied: 'Well, David, I have a lot of ideas and throw away the bad ones.' Where do ideas come from? Why do some people have many more of them than others? How do you distinguish the good ideas from the bad? Most intriguing of all, perhaps, why do the best ideas sometimes strike in a flash of 'sudden genius'? These questions are the subject of this book. Andrew Robinson explores the exceptional creativity in both scientists and artists by following the trail that led ten individuals from childhood to the achievement of a famous creative breakthrough as an adult, in archaeology, architecture, art, biology, chemistry, cinema, music, literature, photography, and physics. Broken into three parts, the book begins with the scientific study of creativity, covering talent, genius, intelligence, memory, dreams, the unconscious, savant syndrome, synaesthesia, and mental illness. The second part tells the stories of five breakthroughs by scientists and five by artists, ranging from Curie's discovery of radium and Einstein's theory of special relativity to Mozart's composing of The Marriage of Figaro and Virginia Woolf's writing of Mrs Dalloway. Robinson concludes by considering what highly creative people who achieve breakthroughs have in common; whether breakthroughs in science and art follow patterns; and whether they always involve imaginative leaps and even 'genius'.

The Only True Genius in the Family

The Only True Genius in the Family PDF Author: Jennie Nash
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780425225752
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
After the death of her father, a legendary landscape photographer, Claire begins to lose faith in her own work as a photographer and to become jealous of the success of her daughter, a rising painter, until she helps prepare a retrospective of her father's work and uncovers life-altering revelations.

The Superhuman Mind

The Superhuman Mind PDF Author: Berit Brogaard, PhD
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 069819036X
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Did you know your brain has superpowers? Berit Brogaard, PhD, and Kristian Marlow, MA, study people with astonishing talents—memory champions, human echolocators, musical virtuosos, math geniuses, and synesthetes who taste colors and hear faces. But as amazing as these abilities are, they are not mysterious. Our brains constantly process a huge amount of information below our awareness, and what these gifted individuals have in common is that through practice, injury, an innate brain disorder, or even more unusual circumstances, they have managed to gain a degree of conscious access to this potent processing power. The Superhuman Mind takes us inside the lives and brains of geniuses, savants, virtuosos, and a wide variety of ordinary people who have acquired truly extraordinary talents, one way or another. Delving into the neurological underpinnings of these abilities, the authors even reveal how we can acquire some of them ourselves—from perfect pitch and lightning fast math skills to supercharged creativity. The Superhuman Mind is a book full of the fascinating science readers look for from the likes of Oliver Sacks, combined with the exhilarating promise of Moonwalking with Einstein.

Constellation of Genius

Constellation of Genius PDF Author: Kevin Jackson
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0374710333
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 419

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Book Description
Ezra Pound referred to 1922 as Year One of a new era. It was the year that began with the publication of James Joyce's Ulysses and ended with the publication of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, two works that were arguably "the sun and moon" of modernist literature, some would say of modernity itself. In Constellation of Genius, Kevin Jackson puts the titanic achievements of Joyce and Eliot in the context of the world in which their works first appeared. As Jackson writes in his introduction, "On all sides, and in every field, there was a frenzy of innovation." It is in 1922 that Hitchcock directs his first feature; Kandinsky and Klee join the Bauhaus; the first AM radio station is launched; Walt Disney releases his first animated shorts; and Louis Armstrong takes a train from New Orleans to Chicago, heralding the age of modern jazz. On other fronts, Einstein wins the Nobel Prize in Physics, insulin is introduced to treat diabetes, and the tomb of Tutankhamun is discovered. As Jackson writes, the sky was "blazing with a ‘constellation of genius' of a kind that had never been known before, and has never since been rivaled." Constellation of Genius traces an unforgettable journey through the diaries of the actors, anthropologists, artists, dancers, designers, filmmakers, philosophers, playwrights, politicians, and scientists whose lives and works—over the course of twelve months—brought a seismic shift in the way we think, splitting the cultural world in two. Was this a matter of inevitability or of coincidence? That is for the reader of this romp, this hugely entertaining chronicle, to decide.

The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl

The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl PDF Author: Stacy McAnulty
Publisher: Yearling
ISBN: 1524767603
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
A lightning strike gave her a super power...but even a super genius can't solve the problem of middle school. This smart and funny novel is perfect for fans of The Fourteenth Goldfish, Rain Reign, and Counting by Sevens. Lucy Callahan's life was changed forever when she was struck by lightning. She doesn't remember it, but the zap gave her genius-level math skills, and she's been homeschooled ever since. Now, at 12 years old, she's technically ready for college. She just has to pass 1 more test--middle school! Lucy's grandma insists: Go to middle school for 1 year. Make 1 friend. Join 1 activity. And read 1 book (that's not a math textbook!). Lucy's not sure what a girl who does calculus homework for fun can possibly learn in 7th grade. She has everything she needs at home, where nobody can make fun of her rigid routines or her superpowered brain. The equation of Lucy's life has already been solved. Unless there's been a miscalculation? A celebration of friendship, Stacy McAnulty's smart and thoughtful middle-grade debut reminds us all to get out of our comfort zones and embrace what makes us different. "Fresh story, great characters, a winner!" --Barbara O'Connor, author of Wish

The Book of Ephraim

The Book of Ephraim PDF Author: James Merrill
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0525520244
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
For the first time in a stand-alone edition, the acclaimed poet's classic poem about his communication with Ephraim, a guiding spirit in the Other World, is here introduced and annotated by poet and Merrill scholar Stephen Yenser. "The Book of Ephraim," which first appeared as the final poem in James Merrill's Pulitzer-winning volume Divine Comedies (1976), tells the story of how he and his partner David Jackson (JM and DJ as they came to be known) embarked on their experiments with the Ouija board and how they conversed after a fashion with great writers and thinkers of the past, especially in regard to the state of the increasingly imperiled planet Earth. One of the most ambitious long poems in in English in the twentieth century, originally conceived as complete in itself, it was to become the first part of Merrill's epic The Changing Light at Sandover (1982), the multiple prize-winning volume still in print. Merrill's "supreme tribute to the web of the world and the convergence of means and meanings everywhere within it" is introduced and annotated by one of his literary executors, Stephen Yenser, in a volume that will gratify veteran readers and entice new ones.

Obsessive Genius

Obsessive Genius PDF Author: Barbara Goldsmith
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393051377
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
"Using original research (diaries, letters, and family interviews) to peel away the layers of myth, Goldsmith offers a portrait of Marie Curie, her amazing discoveries, and the immense price she paid for fame."--BOOK JACKET.