Math in Characters

I finally got around to reading Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet.  Daniel is a well-known autistic savant and synesthete--a savant unique in his abilities to describe to others how he thinks.  In his book, he describes how numbers have always been a very important part of his life.  He explains that he experiences each number as having shape, color, emotion, and personality.  He also explained that he found algebra difficult because for him, letters do not elicit the synesthetic response as numbers. 

Because I know Meredith's numbers are characters (see this post), I asked her if they caused her any difficulty with math problems.  She told me, chuckling, that when doing subtraction one of the numbers is "taken away" to "juvie" (i.e., juvenile jail).

I know that algebra tends to be difficult for visual thinkers and asked her what happens when letters are introduced to math problems.  She said that her letters are characters, too.  The letter a, for instance, is a girl (in the shape of "A") wearing a fancy A-line dress.  The letter x is a criminal. 

She said that actually, Merebith is doing diagnostics on an algebra equation at the moment.  She is trying to figure out how Meredith solved a really long algebra equation when she had trouble solving a very short one.  Chuckling again, Meredith said that Merebith and Dogot are playing good cop, bad cop with the numbers in the equation.  She said it's like an old black and white detective movie where the police question the suspects: "Where were you at 12:00 yesterday..."

Merebith is shining a bright light on the suspects.  They first questioned number two, who is actually a cloud.  But because he could only sputter out thunder and lightening trying to answer their questions, they let him go.  Dogot is wearing the police hat he took out from his extensive hat collection and is using this really funny, deep robot talk, trying hard to act like a bad cop.

So I suppose it is safe to say that because Meredith's numbers are characters and each equation has a storyline factors into why Meredith often finds learning math frustrating, despite her teacher's response that she has a lot of potential in math.  I imagine that Meredith is trying to reconcile how math is "supposed to work" with how Merebith diagnoses how math works.

I'm really looking forward to reading Daniel Tammet's newest book: Embracing the Wide Sky.