Quest is Fun!
I have seven grandchildren, two of whom are young adults, four of whom are teenagers and one just a two-year-old toddler.
I want to introduce to them and to all those within their age groups - young adults up to 25 years old, teenagers up to the age of 19 and toddlers up to the age of say four - the young Kiwi Whiz Kid, Tristan Pang, who has reportedly obtained his PhD in Mathematics and Physics, from Auckland University. That report, from one of mainland China’s Bejing TV stations, broadcasted live this morning (4.30am NZ time Saturday 9th August 2019), is now proven to be incorrect as I searched the internet and found the following news as at 2nd May this year.
University of Auckland student graduates at just 17: Source - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/ED1905/S00002/university-of-auckland-student-graduates-at-just-17.htm http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/ED1905/S00002/university-of-auckland-student-graduates-at-just-17.htm
Thursday, 2 May 2019, 9:23 am
Press Release: University of Auckland
“At just 17, Tristan Pang from the University of Auckland is one of New Zealand’s youngest-ever university graduates.
“Tristan graduates this month [May 2019) with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and Physics with a near-perfect Grade Point Average.
“After completing Honours this year, he will enrol in his PhD and hopes to complete that by the age of 21. He studies pure mathematics, a subject he has been fascinated by since before he was old enough to hold a pencil.
“ ‘Maths is an infinite beautiful puzzle waiting to be explored, it is spontaneous and exciting, and that is why I love it,’ he says.
“ ‘I also admire how maths can be used in other fields such as business, engineering and science. I’m really interested in the way maths is used in string theory for example and part of my goal is to discover maths that can benefit the world.’
” ‘Tristan’s family arrived in New Zealand from the UK when he was four years old. By then, his parents understood their son was unusually bright but getting the help and support needed to ensure he could take advantage of his intellectual gifts wasn’t always easy, says his mother Elaine Pang.
“ ‘To do the best for your gifted child takes extra time and effort and because it’s not the usual developmental path for children, it can be lonely as a parent at times.’
” Despite his ability – the highest grade, A*, in the Cambridge A-Level exam at just eleven years of age - getting Tristan enrolled at university was a challenge. Although he was admitted part-time to university maths courses at 12, the family was told he was too young for such an adult environment and it wasn’t until he turned 13 that he was admitted for full-time study.”
There we got it. He is seventeen this year - the same age as one of my grandchildren and judging by his ability so far, I would expect him to be graduating with his PhD doctorate degree well within the four years period allocated and thus he might even be a PhD by the age of, say, twenty.
Before I say anything further about Tristan and the inspiration he has given me and hopefully will give to my grandchildren, I would like to upload a video of him at the age of twelve, in 2013 when he presented at TEDxYouth Talk. https://youtu.be/sbMKX4J03nY
Listen to the first lesson to be learnt from this video, 00:05 to 01:19 minutes - There are four Modes of human actions and these are: (1) The Deep Sleep Mode, which I illustrated thus by using dashes to represent walking and “i” for falling into the hole: ——————
(2) The Day dream Mode ——————- <EYE> “i” walk, see the hole but still fell down the hole.
(3) Conscious Mode ——————- <EYE> U — “i” walk, see, walk round the hole but still fell down the hole.
(4) Curious Mode ———————-///// WHY \\\\\ walk, see, turn back, think WHY and act, filling up the hole, with no “i”.
The young kid urged us to be constantly at the Mode # (4) the curious kind of mode. He even hinted that with a curious mind, there was no necessity for computer games as the curious mind would urge us to find new ‘experiments’ to explore and new ‘hypotheses’ to be proven.
” When I got a little older I started to ask questions to find out about thing behind the natural phenomena and the universe, how do plants know when to germinate and what is global warming.”
” I explored the worlds of Galileo Galilei, Thomas Edison, Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. I was interested in things that were not visible at first glance, for instance, gravity relativity and the quantum theory. ”
2:12
He was nine when he scored 91 per cent in the Cambridge A-Level exam, eleven when he gave this Ted Talk and thirteen when he became the youngest undergraduate to study mathematics at the University of Auckland.
Take a look at what Tristan Pang is researching now. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=299104307573473
What is the Theory of Emergence?
” I set myself a target to achieve the highest grades in all the examinations I shall be taking. I work hard and also enjoy my work investigating any science topic. This is just like playing puzzles. it is challenging and fun. Every day a new thought pops out and when I explore concept the information from textbooks may not always satisfy my curiosity.”
” I work out myself or I find out more about the related topics and the reasons behind the concepts.”
REFLECTIONS:
(1) How I had wished that there was such assistance for me during my younger days. Like Tristan, I was good, in fact, very good in Mathematics when I was eight years old, I was in Primary Three, Outram School, Outram Road (before the school was converted to a Commercial Secondary School). I topped the standard in Mathematics and I was also the top student in overall performance. I did not have a supportive parent, nor a supportive relative member. My solo mother was busy working as a domestic servant and I was very much left on my own with some supervision from my maternal grandmother.
During that year, 1951, I concentrated my studies so much on just a single subject Mathematics that I neglected the others. The result then was that I came top of the standard in Term # 1, 45th in Term # 2 (out of 4 classes of 40 - 45 each class of the same standard) right down to # 158 in Term 3. The class teacher had no sympathy on a poor student and I was made to retain in the same standard (Standard 3) for another year. My whole life became a year slower.
But on the Mathematics front, I gave free mathematics tuition to all the children in the streets around me. I worked on Durell’s mathematics books way ahead of my level and learned Algebra and Geometry at 10 and integration, differential equations like dy by dx, statistics, even modelling at 12, all self-taught.
Just how much would I be ahead if I just had the support of … … … But, life is life. As Tristan had said, looking back at the past was never good for progress. The past is only good for us to learn from the mistakes we made.
(2) Now for the present. Tristan’s words have consolidated my present aim to pass on whatever I know to my seven grandchildren. I know that to do this, I cannot simply gather then together to give them advice. Neither can I talk to them as Grandad to Grandchild. I need to talk to them as Friends.
So, what I have done is to prepare my online tuition notes for everyone interested in enrolling into my online free tuition classes:
(a) in school topics ranging from English to Science, through Mathematics and Languages;
(b) real estate topics from property valuation to real estate, through property development and property management;
(c) construction topics from quantity surveying to construction management through architectural design and cost management;
(d) philosophy topics from comparative religious dialogue to environmental studies through climate change and even morality;
(e) fun topics from chess to sudoku through sketch drawings and word press publishing.
All these subjects and topics have been collated in this website u-write-read.com
I shall let my grandchildren find out where they wish their Granddad to assist them in their curiosity, in their Mode # 4 minds.
I rest my case.
English