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Taking a stroll to Marina Square for my daily Macs study routine, I bumped into an interesting presentation at the main arena. It was an Astar organized event for Science week 2007. There were many exhibits displayed from various organizations but the main attraction that caught my eye was a simple presentation of the refraction of light.

The reason that this presentation interest me was because it was done by a nineteen year old Hwa Chong student and as always, it involves mathematics, in particular hyperbolic functions. The presentation was a proof of a conjecture that deals with refraction of light rays and how they follow a certain function. Curious as to who discovered such a theorem, I ask the closest student. It turned out to be him, a Hwa Chong JC student named Hang.

When like minded mathematicians meet, they can go into a deep conversation involving the various concepts and theorems of the subject. That was exactly what happened. We both traded our knowledge on calculus, math competitions, universities, history, basically everything involving mathematics. My understanding of the subject seem to be on par with him but soon after, when he talked about his achievements, boy I was blown away.

This JC student has won numerous awards which I can only dream of winning namely SSEF Gold, ISEF Representative, top 10 in both Singapore and Singapore team selection Mathematics Olympiad. As for me, I just got my calculus text book and Gaussian Math.

But this blog isn't about him is it? It is about me. I felt somewhat dejected after that conversation because it put myself as a mathematics student in perspective with the Singapore community. And by using Hang as a standard, I have gotten NOTHING!

I can rattle on about my 6 distinctions for A levels and my quick understanding of university level mathematics but the truth of the matter is there are a whole bunch of students out there who is in a whole different league, a league which I'm at the bottom finding a chance to get in. I can't thinking of a conjecture and prove it. I can't use topology to solve a single problem. I can't reach the top 10 for any Olympiad.

Honestly, when I walk into a mathematics lecture, I always feel an air of superiority because I can integrate a confusing sum which 95% of the students can't even find a way to start. I just found out that the other 5% can integrate the same sum, only raise to the power of n.

Bottom line: there's a lot for me to do. I'm not as good as I thought myself to be.