“I don’t know why I like perfect squares,” he says. “It’s not just a perfect square, it’s two to the power of four or four squared but I just like perfect squares…I automatically do that stuff with everything.”
Padgett is so obsessed with maths and understands such complex concepts, he's been called a genius. He certainly has a rare talent for drawing repeating geometric patterns – known as fractals – by hand.
But the former futon salesman from Alaska hasn’t always had a way with numbers. Just under 17 years ago he was living a very different life in Tacoma, Washington.