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Jason Padgett explaining how he became a mathematics genius.

Jason Padgett is a number theorist with acquired savant syndrome living in Tacoma, Washington. Jason was born in 1970 in the city of Anchorage, Alaska, where he lived until his mid-twenties. As a young man, Jason dropped out of Tacoma community college, worked as a futon salesman and focused on parties, drinking, and getting girls. His night changed on the night of September 13, 2002 when he was attacked and robbed by two men outside a local karaoke bar. This attack caused a change in this brain activity, giving him the ability to see the world differently than most. His ability to see mathematical shapes in everyday objects has changed his life forever and left scientists and doctors with questions about the inherent abilities of humans.

Life Before the Attack

Jason was born and raised in Alaska. After scoring very high on an IQ test administered in elementary school, his family thought he was likely to be a genius and expected great things in his future. At the age of 9 years old, his parents divorced and Jason moved with his mom and brother to the small town of Cantwell, Alaska. When he later moved to Tacoma, Washington, he attended Tacoma community college and worked at his father's futon store. He was a poor student with little interest in math and even less motivation in school work. He received poor grades and instead focused his energy chasing his next adrenaline fix. As a young man, he bungee jumped at least 30 times, skydived nineteen times, scuba dived with sharks ad had a brown belt in karate. Jason's biggest concern was going out with his friends, hot rod and muscle cars. He worked out 6-7 days a week, has spiked hair and a mullet and spent most days goofing off. He soon dropped out of community college to sell futons full time. Because the 1990's was the 'golden age of futons" his father's business did well.

The Attack

On Friday the 13th in September of 2002, Jason went out to a local karaoke bar with his friends in Tacoma, Washington. As he was leaving the bar, he was hit in the back of the head. He saw a white light like a photo camera flash, felt dizzy like the whole world was spinning around him, fell down and lost consciousness. As he came back to consciousness he didn't know where he was or how he got there. As he tried to stand up he was punched and kicked by two men repeatedly. His friend stood there looking on but not intervening. They robbed his leather jacket, never once searching him for his wallet where he has a couple hundred dollars stored.

Once at the Tacoma General Hospital, doctors diagnosed him with a badly bruised kidney and a profound concussion. He received medicine and was sent home that night. His attackers, Brady Simmons and Andrew Schrinek, were eventually arrested but released.

Life After the Attack

The day after the attack, Jason felt very strange. he assumed it was an effect of the medication he was prescribed but as time went on, it was clear the attack had changed him in more profound and long-term ways that anyone has imagined. As a result of his traumatic brain injury, Jason began displaying signs of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He also began viewing the world through a lens of mathematical shapes, something he had never seen before.

OCD and PTSD

The onset of OCD and PTSD happened immediately. He found himself obsessed with not touching germs. He would wash his hands 20 times in 30 minutes trying to avoid touching something in the process that may have been dirty. He avoided people by only leaving his home at night for food and hammering three layers of blankets over this windows to avoid sunlight. He would sleep for days only to wake up and try to fall back asleep. He had changed from social butterfly to antisocial in a matter of days. This behavior change lasted for three years before

Seeing Shapes and Acquired Savant Syndrome

Immediately after the attack, Jason also began seeing the world in shapes. Water now looked like tangent lines and light became rays made up of lines and spirals. Many of the images he began to see corresponded to geometry and physics concepts he had never studied. Somehow he knew it was all related to Pi. He began drawing the shapes he would see. Drawing became therapeutic and helped managing his OCD and PTSD. He contacted Wisconsin psychiatrist Dr. Darold Treffert, a world-recognized expert on savantism who eventually diagnosed Jason with acquired savant syndrome. According to the New York Post, "Padgett is one of only 40 people in the world with “acquired ­savant syndrome,” a condition in which prodigious talents in math, art or music emerge in previously normal individuals following a brain injury or disease."

Jason was later invited to partake in a study at the University of Miami with Dr. Berit Brogaard, where she used fMRI machines and transcranial magnetic stimulations to understand how Jason's brain had been affected by the attack. Jason learned that the left side of his brain, the side that houses math abilities, had greater activation that his left.

Jason continued drawing the shapes he saw. He would take his drawing everywhere he went. One day, Jason was in public drawing shapes when a man approached him asking about his drawings. “I’m trying to describe the discrete structure of space time based on Planck length (a tiny unit of measurement developed by physicist Max Planck) and quantum black holes,” Padgett told him. It turned out the man was a physicist and recognized the high-level mathematics Padgett was drawing. He urged him to take a math class, which led Padgett to enroll in a community college, where he began to learn the language he needed to describe his obsession." Jason decided to return to school where he eventually learned the mathematical vocabulary to communicate what he was seeing and experiencing. While attending school, he met his now wife, Elena Padgett.

Later Life and Impact on the World

Fame

Jason now views the attack it's effects as a gift. Since the attack, Jason has gone on to make and sell his artwork on his personal website portraying the shapes he sees, has written a book about his attack and life thereafter, and has given Ted Talks. Studio Sony even picked up the rights to make a movie on his life.

Redemption and Impact on Math

Fifteen years after the attack, one of Jason's attackers, Brady Simmons, reached out to Jason. Brady has since changed his life around, found sobriety, and apologized to Jason for his action that day. Both men found their meeting to be cathartic and healing.

Jason believes his attacks and his abilities to see geometric shapes will play an important role in science and math. He's hopeful that more children will enter the field of math and science as they hear his story and realize the many ways math and science apply to our lifes.