EDHS Contemporary World Affairs

So over spring break i watched a documentary on discovery channel & they were showing different documentaries on people who were born different from normal people.

One man was Kim Peek "The Real Rain Man"
He has a photographic memory like no other human being.

This man was born with damages in his brain. He was born with macrocephaly, damage to the cerebellum, and, perhaps most important, agenesis of the corpus callosum, a condition in which the bundle of nerves that connects the two hemispheres of the brain is missing; in Peek's case, secondary connectors such as the anterior commissure are also missing. There is speculation that his neurons make other connections in the absence of a corpus callosum, which results in an increased

Therefore, his photographic memory is amazing.

The local library is Kim's favourite place in the world. Kim devours books on anything and everything, as many as eight in a day. He reads at a phenomenal rate, a page that may take you or I three minutes will take Kim about 10 seconds. He reads the left page with his left eye and the right page with his right eye and will retain about 98% of it. He has 15 subject areas but about the only thing he can't do is, he can't reason out mathematical problems.

Kim's father indicates that at age 16-20 months Kim was able to memorize every book that was read to him. His parents moved Kim's finger along each sentence being read. Kim would memorize a book after a single reading and having read that particular book he would put it aside, upside down, so that no one would attempt to read it to him again. Even today, all reading materials are placed by Kim upside down or put backwards on a shelf.


Known as 'Kimputer' to many, his knowledge-library includes World and American History, People and Leaders, Geography (roads and highways in U.S. and Canada), Professional Sports (baseball, basketball, football, Kentucky Derby winners etc), the Space Program, Movies and movie themes, Actors and Actresses, the Bible, Mormon Church Doctrine and History, Calendar Calculations (including a person's day of birth, present year~s birthday, and the year and the date the person will turn 65 years old so he or she can retire), Literature/Authors, Shakespeare, Telephone Area Codes, major Zip Codes, all TV stations and their markets. He can identify most classical music compositions and tell the date the music was written and the composer's birth date and place of birth and death. Kim has read (and can recall) some 7600 books. He also keeps current on world, U.S. and most local events by reading newspapers, magazines and by listening to the media. He reads constantly. He can also describe the highways that go to a person's small town, the county, area code and zip code, television stations available in the town, who the person's pay their telephone bill to, and describe any historical events that may have occurred in their area. His expertise includes at least 14 subject areas."



i put different articles together from different sites.
if you want to read more about him here are the sites.
http://stepanov.lk.net/mnemo/kimpeeke.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Peek

oh and they made a movie about him called "rain man"


any thoughts?