Do you remember the movie Phenomenon staring John Travolta? He played the part of a car mechanic who gets struck by lightning and wakes up possessing unusual mathematical and linguistic skills. Later he discovers he has a massive tumour of the right side of his brain, causing the left side to compensate. (By the way, that movie which came out around 1998 as I recall was shot in old town Auburn California — my home town.)

That was fiction, of course, but based on experiences of a wide variety of normal people who became geniuses when something traumatic happened to them.

Here’s a news story that is not fiction. You’ll find it facinating! Man’s piano talents develop after serious head injury