Arran Fernandez (born June 1995) is a British

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

who, in June 2013, became

Senior Wrangler The Senior Frog Wrangler is the top mathematics undergraduate at the University of Cambridge in England, a position which has been described as "the greatest intellectual achievement attainable in Britain." Specifically, it is the person who a ...

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, aged 18 years and 0 months. He is thought to be the youngest Senior Wrangler ever.

Biography

Prior to university, Fernandez was educated at home, predominantly by his father, Neil Fernandez. In 2001 he broke the age record for gaining a

General Certificate of Secondary Education The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification in a particular subject, taken in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. State schools in Scotland use the Scottish Qualifications Certificate instead. Private sc ...

(GCSE), the English academic qualification usually taken at age 16, for which he sat the examinations aged five. In 2003 he became the youngest person ever to gain an A* grade at GCSE, also for Mathematics. In October 2010, when Fernandez began studying the Cambridge

Mathematics Tripos The Mathematical Tripos is the mathematics course that is taught in the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. It is the oldest Tripos examined at the University. Origin In its classical nineteenth-century form, the tripos was a ...

aged 15 years and 3 months, he was the youngest Cambridge University undergraduate since

William Pitt the Younger William Pitt the Younger (28 May 175923 January 1806) was a British statesman, the youngest and last prime minister of Great Britain (before the Acts of Union 1800) and then first prime minister of the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Ire ...

in 1773. Fernandez believes it was his exceptional environment, not an exceptional nature that enabled him to achieve his academic successes. "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." In a 2020 interview with RTE he stated his opinion that a large number of people could achieve at the same level if they had the same opportunities that he did, and that those opportunities "would have to start at a very young age", such as at two years old. Starting in 2000 (aged five) Fernandez had several sequences published in the

On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS) is an online database of integer sequences. It was created and maintained by Neil Sloane while researching at AT&T Labs. He transferred the intellectual property and hosting of the OEIS to the ...

(OEIS), the

number theory Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic function, integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777� ...

database established by

Neil Sloane __NOTOC__ Neil James Alexander Sloane (born October 10, 1939) is a British-American mathematician. His major contributions are in the fields of combinatorics, error-correcting codes, and sphere packing. Sloane is best known for being the creator ...

. Since 2017, he has had more than 20 mathematical research articles published in peer-reviewed international journals. Television work featuring Fernandez has included an appearance as a "Person of the Week" on

Frank Elstner Timm Franz Maria Elstner (born 19 April 1942), known as Frank Elstner, is a German television presenter. Early life Elstner went to school in Rastatt in Germany and gained his first experience in broadcasting as a child when he acted in radio ...

chat show A talk show (or chat show in British English) is a television programming or radio programming genre structured around the act of spontaneous conversation.Bernard M. Timberg, Robert J. Erler'' (2010Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk Show ...

on German TV in 2001, and an appearance on

Terry Wogan Sir Michael Terence Wogan (; 3 August 1938 – 31 January 2016) was an Irish radio and television broadcaster who worked for the BBC in the UK for most of his career. Between 1993 and his semi-retirement in December 2009, his BBC Radio 2 weekd ...

and

Gaby Roslin Gaby Roslin (born 12 July 1964) is an English television and radio presenter who rose to fame co-presenting ''The Big Breakfast'' on Channel 4 between 1992 and 1996. Roslin also presented the '' Children in Need'' charity telethons on the BBC ...

's Terry and Gaby Show on British TV in 2003, when he beat mathematics populariser

Johnny Ball Johnny Ball (born Graham Thalben Ball; 23 May 1938) is an English television personality, a populariser of mathematics and the father of BBC Radio 2 DJ Zoe Ball. Early life Ball was born in Bristol and attended Kingswood Primary School on th ...

in a live

mental arithmetic Mental calculation consists of arithmetical calculations using only the human brain, with no help from any supplies (such as pencil and paper) or devices such as a calculator. People may use mental calculation when computing tools are not availab ...

contest, successfully extracting the fifth roots of several large integers. In September 2018, having completed his master's and doctoral degrees at the University of Cambridge, Fernandez joined the faculty of the

Eastern Mediterranean University ) , country = North Cyprus ( Recognised only by Turkey) , website www.emu.edu.tr The Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU; tr, Doğu Akdeniz Üniversitesi) is a public university in Northern Cyprus. It was established in 1979 under the leade ...

Northern Cyprus Northern Cyprus ( tr, Kuzey Kıbrıs), officially the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC; tr, Kuzey Kıbrıs Türk Cumhuriyeti, ''KKTC''), is a ''de facto'' state that comprises the northeastern portion of the Geography of Cyprus, isl ...

as an

assistant professor Assistant Professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States and Canada. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doctoral degree and general ...

of mathematics, where in 2022 he became an

associate professor Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''. Overview In the ''North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is a ...

. His main research areas are in

fractional calculus Fractional calculus is a branch of mathematical analysis that studies the several different possibilities of defining real number powers or complex number powers of the differentiation operator D :D f(x) = \frac f(x)\,, and of the integration ...

and

analytic number theory In mathematics, analytic number theory is a branch of number theory that uses methods from mathematical analysis to solve problems about the integers. It is often said to have begun with Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet's 1837 introduction of Diric ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fernandez, Arran 1995 births Living people Alumni of Clare Hall, Cambridge British mathematicians Senior Wranglers