53 here, and I also don't remember "learning to read", but I do still remember wondering why so many of the other kids in my kindergarten class (4-5year olds here) couldn't read already.
My parents were always "readers" and growing up our house was always full of bookshelves stacked to overflowing with books and magazines.
I spent a lot of time as a pre teen and teenager going through my dad's unbroken collection of Scientific American magazine starting from the late 60s. I suspect Martin Gardner's column has had a direct influence on my career choices and why I hang out here... I remember many occasions when peers at university were first learning about things like Conway's Game Of Life, Penrose Tilings, and RSA public key crypto - and I'd be "Doesn't everybody know all this already? I think I read about this before I was in high school!"
For nostalgia's sake, I just went and found Gardner's RSA article. It was from 1977 - I was 10 (by which stage I was almost certainly grabbing the magazine from Dad as soon as he'd finished reading it).
Notable quote: "For example, to test a 130 digit odd number for primality requires at the most (that is when the number is actually prime) about 7 minutes on a PDP-10 computer."
My parents were always "readers" and growing up our house was always full of bookshelves stacked to overflowing with books and magazines.
I spent a lot of time as a pre teen and teenager going through my dad's unbroken collection of Scientific American magazine starting from the late 60s. I suspect Martin Gardner's column has had a direct influence on my career choices and why I hang out here... I remember many occasions when peers at university were first learning about things like Conway's Game Of Life, Penrose Tilings, and RSA public key crypto - and I'd be "Doesn't everybody know all this already? I think I read about this before I was in high school!"