The wizard of Maths

At mathematics he’s at the very top end. For a guy so young I can’t remember anybody so decorated at his age. He certainly started out with a bang and has not let it get to his head, which is unusual. Of course he couldn’t do what he does if he wasn’t brilliant. It’s his exceptional talent that’s so striking.”  
Peter Sarnak of Princeton University, about Prof. Manjul Bhargava

In one of Princeton University’s weekly bulletins, there’s a mention of how well Prof. Manjul Bhargava plays the tabla, which he started playing when he was very, very young. Bhargava was drawn to a sound actually — the “na”, a difficult note made on the edges of the instrument. “I remember when I was three, I heard my mom and tried to copy her. That’s one of the things that drew me to the tabla. I had to learn to make that sound,” he says, in the bulletin.

Thus began his search for rhythm and pattern... a search that took him to the one place that holds the two very dear — mathematics.  

And in Maths he became... truly awesome. At 28, Bhargava became the second youngest full professor of mathematics at Princeton University, following a stint at Harvard. Even at the bachelor’s level in 1996, he won the very prestigious Morgan Prize for “outstanding research in mathematics” and now, at 40, he’s the winner of the Fields Medal, a prize so coveted that it’s known as the “Nobel of Mathematics”. He’s also the first Indian to win the prize, which is given out every four years to mathematicians who are 40, or younger.

The child who hated going to school
Mother Mira Bhargava, a mathematics professor herself at Hofstra University in New York, recalls how eight-year-old Manjul would often accompany her to work and attend college-level classes with students — pointing out mistakes during her lecture. “The students really enjoyed that,” she recalled, in an interview with Quanta magazine.

The genius in him did start showing early. For example, he gained an early understanding of lattice points on shapes after he started arranging oranges, his mum would buy from the supermarket, into a pyramid. This habit led to an early understanding of geometry and shapes.

He found maths everywhere — even in magic tricks. The mathematics behind magic is actually a class Bhargava loves to take for first-year students at Princeton, where he simply turns up and performs a trick — students claim “The Mathematics of Magic Tricks and Games” lecture is “super chill”.

There were also the trips home — to Jaipur — where Bhargava spent much time with his grandfather, a scholar of Indian history, who gave the young boy training in Sanskrit and the philosophy of the ‘ancients’. He soon found out that Sanskrit had an inherent rhythm and that the alphabet truly had a mathematical structure to it. Thus developed a varied interest that currently spans culture, civilisations, calculations and music, which he had initially planned as a career.

Mathematics aside, he still takes the tabla very seriously and continues to learn under the tutelage of masters Pandit Prem Prakash Sharma and Ustad Zakir Hussain. Bhargava also plays the sitar, guitar and violin (he had a full-fledged concert in New York city some years ago).  “I use music as a break (from maths). I am always working on lots of things at once and many times, I come back to the maths later. I am just thinking, wherever it leads,” he said.

Turning Professor
Two years into a five-year fellowship programme, Bhargava made enough waves within the mathematics community to trigger a bidding war for him between top universities of the world — the jobs were pouring in. So, faced with the brightest prospects at just 28, he accepted alma mater Princeton’s call, becoming the institution’s second-youngest full professor ever. He loved being back and would even race down hallways with the young graduate students.
“One time, another professor happened to be there in the evening, and he came out of his office. That was rather embarrassing,” he said in the interview to Quanta.

But it has been more work than play for Bhargava at Princeton and following the Fields Medal honour, he’s diverting all this attention at making the process of teaching better and, more fun. “I am of course very honoured. Beyond that, it is a great source of encouragement and inspiration, not just for me, but also for my students, collaborators and colleagues who work with me. Needless to say, this is their prize, too,” Bhargava says.

And the entire mathematics department at the university is thrilled too. David Gabai, Hughes-Rogers Professor of Mathematics and department chair, said, “Manjul is an extraordinary teacher and this is really great for both the department and the University. The Fields Medal is probably the most prestigious recognition in pure mathematics.”

Gabai was also all praise for Bhargava’s magic tricks class for the newcomers and after the big medal, it certainly seems like the young professor can expect several more students to attend the big opening lecture.