Since you’ve probably already recognized the guy on the right, let me introduce to you the young man on the left, my high school friend Justin Yang, who was the youngest (then age 14) in my Gr. 12 AP Calculus class.

Justin displayed a prodigious mathematical talent at age 14 - while everyone else his age was struggling trying to solve square root problems, he was in the corner of the classroom exploring number theory and its applications in depth with poor Mr. Cacchione.

(the little math genius Justin in Gr. 9)

One day at school, I noticed Justin’s absence. That’s not him. He’s never missed any classes ever since I knew him. I went back home and told my mother. The next day, my mother told me that Justin had just had his heart bypass surgery.

“It went well. He should be back to school soon.” My mother said.

He never came back.

The surgery went well indeed. Something went terribly wrong, however, during the post-operative care. Two days after he returned home, he had a stroke with blood spewing from his mouth and nose. He was immediately admitted to BC Children’s Hospital.

He survived the second surgery, but his life was never the same again. Hemiparesis. Dysphagia. Spasticity. Dysphasia. Altered walking gait…He has since never been able to play his beloved violin due to his hand stiffness caused by the irreversible neurological damage; his speech so slurred no matter how hard he had tried. It was a prison for an intellect like him.

A year later, Justin’s mother, who was also my mother’s best friend, died of multiple organ failure triggered by viral infections. To mitigate the huge financial burden, Justin’s father managed to work two part-time jobs in food court restaurants.

Despite his stroke sequelae and the doctors’ gloomy predictions, Justin refused to accept that “he’d spend his lifetime confined to a wheelchair” and that “his cognitive function would be very likely to deteriorate to that of a 5-year-old”. He wasn’t going to let that happen. He decided…

Another year later, this young man participated in the 59th Annual American Mathematics Contest12 and received 150 - perfect score.

Justin is currently pursuing a PhD in Mathematics at UBC. His research interest lies in number theory, in particular in Analytic Number Theory, Iwasawa Theory and Galois Representations, and Automorphic Forms and Arithmetic Geometry.

I wish him the best of luck.