winning international honors in computer science
- From: Roger Bagula <rlbagula@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 21:07:05 GMT
http://www.thedurhamnews.com/101/story/37812.html
Nothing modest about teen's math skills
DA student up for $100k scholarship
John Pardon
Samiha Khanna, Staff Writer
Even when an auditorium full of students rose to cheer John Pardon's latest accomplishment, he played down the recognition.
"You got a standing ovation," teachers at Durham Academy told him.
"I think they were getting up to leave, actually," John, 17, concluded.
Other teenagers might have done a victory lap after winning international honors in computer science, as John did last fall. But modesty is John's comfort zone.
If things could go his way, few would know that he will travel to Washington next month to compete with other gifted high schoolers for a $100,000 scholarship, and the honor of winning what has been called the "Junior Nobel Prize." But members of the Durham Academy community don't want John's successes to be a secret.
John is among 40 semi-finalists in the Intel Science Talent Search, from which finalists have gone on to earn the Nobel Prize and Fields Medal. John, who lives in Chapel Hill, will be competing with other gifted students from across the country who have completed projects in computer science, biology, engineering and other fields. The top winner will be announced March 13.
John automatically will go home with a laptop and $6,000. Chosen from more than 1,700 entrants, he will meet members of the White House staff and some of the world's most lauded scientists. He'll present his project, the solution to a math problem using "rigidity theory."
In a "Good Will Hunting" moment, John stumbled upon the problem on a university professor's Web site. Until he tackled the time-consuming riddle, the problem had been posted on the professor's unsolved list.
Many of John's successes can be attributed to his diligence. His pursuits in math and science often occur outside of school and on weekends. But he also is blessed with natural ability, he concedes.
Even as a child, Joyce Pardon knew her son thought differently than other children. He was counting by age 3, even though child psychologists said it was more likely that John was only repeating numbers he had learned. He mastered the board game Monopoly by first grade, but could never find peers to play with him -- they couldn't keep up, Joyce Pardon said.
"We never had to teach him how to do [math], he just understood it," Joyce Pardon said.
At age 6, John took an achievement test, the results showing he had mastered simple math and was ready for high-school-level equations, she said. By 10th grade, John had completed every math offering at Durham Academy. He was taking graduate-level math courses at Duke University before he even could drive.
"I was scouring my sources, looking for the hardest problems," said Andrew Ferrari, a math teacher at Durham Academy who has taught John one-on-one.
Joyce Pardon says she likes to repeat theories she's heard about math ingenuity being inherited from the mother's side of the family. But it might help, too, that John's father Bill is a math professor at Duke.
Father and son often engage in mathspeak at the dinner table while mom and 14-year-old Mireille talk about volleyball. But John does engage in other pursuits, including playing the cello and running track and cross-country at school.
"One would assume that someone who's so absurdly advanced at mathematics would just sit around a desk," said Evan Donahue, an 18-year-old classmate. "But he's a perfectly well-rounded individual with this amazing ability."
And while John may be beyond his years in math and science, he's absolutely a teen.
He loves video games. He peeves his little sister with sarcastic comments. The path from his bedroom door to the bed is blocked with stacks of paper and dirty laundry. And some of the stories his proud parents recount to reporters or relatives -- including those about how little John would burst into tears at the sight of another child being disciplined -- would make his cheeks burn.
Staff writer Samiha Khanna can be reached at 956-2468 or skhanna@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
.
- Prev by Date: Thinking outside the box isn't Mad Cow Disease
- Previous by thread: Thinking outside the box isn't Mad Cow Disease
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
