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Rosemary Mosco
@rosemarymosco.com
127K followers 530 following 4K posts
Nature comics (Bird and Moon). Books about nature. Talks. Bird facts. rosemarymosco.com She/her.
!["The Twins", about autistic savants. Dr. Sacks meets twin brothers who can neither read nor perform multiplication, yet are playing a "game" of finding very large prime numbers. While the twins were able to spontaneously generate these numbers, from six to twenty digits, Sacks had to resort to a book of prime numbers to join in with them. The twins also instantly count 111 dropped matches, simultaneously remarking that 111 is three 37s. This story has been questioned by Makoto Yamaguchi, who doubts that a book of large prime numbers could exist as described, and points out that reliable scientific reports support only approximate perception when rapidly counting large numbers of items.[7][8] Autistic savant Daniel Tammet points out that the twins provided the matchbox and may have counted its contents beforehand, noting that he finds the value of 111 to be "particularly beautiful and matchstick-like".[9] The twins in question had already been studied extensively, and no ability to identify primes had been reported. In his private journal, Sacks wrote this case was the "most flagrant example" of his distortions.[2]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ciczkjj6zodjr7x6zugk7lcz/bafkreiebmdturdpvdpopysmysasmk75bpsygfjxz2kqcrcy6o7eaevg7gq)
