Nostalgia

Last weekend, I met an amazing person on the Orkut Mathematics Community. He has just passed 12th standard and is heading for IIT. From the solutions he provided in the community, I could sense that this person has to be a genius. The methods used by him were highly efficient and I would say that he possessed great problem solving skills (both drilling / thinking type).

I was reminded of my younger days when I was myself in 12th standard. I am seeing the same (or even more) energy and fervor in him when looking at his solutions. It seemed as if I felt 10 years younger. I was amazed at the speed with which he attacked some tough problems which I had posed.

I was feeling nostalgic about the whole affair and wondered about my pre-IITJEE days when I was into the problem solving game. Contrast this with the present where most of my mathematical adventures are purely theoretical in nature and much of it happens using keyboard. Luckily he helped to get back to my old days of pen and paper by giving me a problem requiring intensive manipulations and both of us are still searching for a solution which requires very little of those cumbersome manipulations.

Needless to say, we had a lot of serious math talk after this and I encouraged him to towards the theoretical aspects of mathematics (apart from the excellent problem solving skills he had) and gave him some ideas in that direction and I hope he would be able to assimilate all that abstract stuff easily.

I don't know if he will able to find time in IIT to continue his passion for mathematics, but I warned him in advance and I wish him best of luck for his mathematics.

Its a rare experience to get to know such people and very few people will understand what such an experience means. To them I would just say that it was great...