The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Class III student is a whiz at maths

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 10, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Class III student is a whiz at maths

Lalitha Sai

At six, Swaraj Sahu could solve problems prescribed for class XII

PRODIGY AT THREE: Swaraj Sahu — Photo: S. Thanthoni

CHENNAI: Calculating the velocity of a ball dropped from a height of 300 m using Newton's Laws and solving problems in integral calculus is easy for Swaraj Sahu, Standard III student of SBOA School, Annanagar.

A way with numbers

He can also add and multiply numbers very fast.

What is 15x14 and 73x11? Within a second come the answers, 210 and 803. Quiet for his age, he is good at grasping mathematical principles.

Swaraj started exhibiting his unusual talent when he was just three years old. His father, Sujit Kumar Sahu, playfully taught him tables when Swaraj was in UKG and was amazed at the speed at which Swaraj picked it up.

In just a few months Sujit found his son had a way with numbers and could manipulate them at ease. This encouraged him to motivate the child further.

So Sujit and wife Nabanita Padhy bought books prescribed for higher classes for the child. By the time the child was six he could solve problems prescribed for students of class XII. Sujit later taught Swaraj the basic principles of physics.

The little boy again surprised them by grasping the principles easily and now he can solve problems dealing with mechanics, projectile motion and relative motion.

"Even though I find integral calculus easy, I love to solve problems in mechanics," says Swaraj.

In mathematics, Swaraj likes to work on trigonometry, calculus, logarithms and co-ordinate geometry.

Sujit has done his super specialisation in cardiology and works with the Vijaya Heart Foundation, Vadapalani. His wife is a gynaecologist at Soorya Hospital.

When the couple realized that Swaraj had a flair for maths and physics, both of them took to learning the subjects during their leisure hours to coach him.

"When it came to calculus and trigonometry in mathematics and mechanics in physics I really had to put in a lot of effort. But, the interest evinced by the child to learn the concepts with patience was astounding," said Sujit.

Swaraj, who is the eldest of the couple's two children, is not interested in watching cartoons on TV instead he spends time solving nearly 50 problems a day.

In five years he has filled nearly 70 long-sized notebooks with physics and mathematics problems.

Swaraj resides at 147 D, AVM Avenue, 8th Street, Virugambakkam, Chennai - 92. Ph: 9383456781, 3098 6105.

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