Daniel Tammet vs Flo and Kay Lyman
Two savants, compared on what is actually documented: field, era, country and record. No invented numbers.
The record, side by side
| Daniel Tammet | Flo and Kay Lyman | |
| Field | Science | Mathematics |
| Sub-field | Biology | Mathematician |
| Born | 1979 | 1956 |
| Died | living / not documented | living / not documented |
| Country of birth | ENG | - |
| Star sign | Aquarius | - |
Who they are
Daniel Tammet
On 14 March 2004 — Pi Day — Daniel Tammet sat down in the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford and began to recite. For five hours and nine minutes he spoke the digits of pi, one after another, while observers checked him against the printed value. He stopped at 22,514 digits, a European record. To Tammet it had not felt like recall in the ordinary sense. He was not retrieving a list. He was, he said, describing a landscape he could see — pi as a rolling sequence of shapes, colours and…
Full biography of Daniel Tammet →
What they share
- Their lifetimes overlap.
Where they part
- Different fields: Science for Daniel Tammet, Mathematics for Flo and Kay Lyman.
- 23 years separate their births (1979 and 1956).
Questions people ask
- Who came first, Daniel Tammet or Flo and Kay Lyman?
- Flo and Kay Lyman. Daniel Tammet was born in 1979, Flo and Kay Lyman in 1956.
- What field is each of them in?
- Daniel Tammet is filed under Science (Biology). Flo and Kay Lyman is filed under Mathematics (Mathematician).
- Were they contemporaries?
- Yes - their lifetimes overlap.