Arran Fernandez
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Arran Fernandez | |
|---|---|
| Born | June 1995 (age 30) United Kingdom |
| Education | Home-educated |
| Alma mater | University of Cambridge |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Fractional calculus |
| Institutions | Eastern Mediterranean University |
| Thesis | Analysis in Fractional Calculus and Asymptotics Related to Zeta Functions (2018) |
| Doctoral advisor | Athanassios S. Fokas |
Arran Fernandez (born June 1995) is a British mathematician, an associate professor at the Eastern Mediterranean University, and a researcher in fractional calculus. He is thought to be the youngest-ever Senior Wrangler at the University of Cambridge, having completed his bachelor's studies aged 18.
Starting in 2000 (aged five), Fernandez had several sequences published in the On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS), the number theory database established by Neil Sloane.[1][2][3]
Prior to university, Fernandez was educated at home, predominantly by his father, the radical educationalist Neil Fernandez.[4][5][6] In 2001, he broke the age record for gaining a General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), the English academic qualification usually taken at age 16, for which he sat the examinations aged five.[7] In 2003, he became the youngest person ever to gain an A* grade at GCSE, also for Mathematics.[8][9]
In 2001, Fernandez appeared as a "Person of the Week" on Frank Elstner's talk show on German TV.[10] In 2003, he appeared on Terry Wogan's and Gaby Roslin's The Terry and Gaby Show on British TV,[11] when he beat mathematics populariser Johnny Ball in a live mental arithmetic contest, successfully extracting the fifth roots of several large integers.
Fernandez believes it was his exceptional environment, rather than exceptional nature, that enabled him to achieve his academic successes.[12] "Everything I achieved is because of my education and the opportunities I had. And the big part of my story is that I never went to school. My parents never believed in the official education system."[4] In a 2020 interview with Raidio Teilifis Eireann, he stated his opinion that a large number of people could achieve at the same level if they had the same opportunities as he did, and that those opportunities "would have to start at a very young age", such as at two years old.[5]
In October 2010, when Fernandez began studying the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos aged 15 years and 3 months, he was the youngest University of Cambridge undergraduate since William Pitt the Younger in 1773.[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] In June 2013, he became that year's Senior Wrangler at the University of Cambridge, aged 18 years and 6 days. He is thought to be the youngest Senior Wrangler ever.[23][a]
