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, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

who, in June 2013, became

Senior Wrangler The Senior 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 achiev ...

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

, 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 range of subjects taken in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, having been introduced in September 1986 and its first exams taken in 1988. State schools ...

(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 Mathematical Tripos The Mathematical Tripos is the mathematics course that is taught in the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. Origin In its classical nineteenth-century form, the tripos was a distinctive written examination of undergraduate s ...

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

William Pitt the Younger William Pitt (28 May 1759 – 23 January 1806) was a British statesman who served as the last prime minister of Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain from 1783 until the Acts of Union 1800, and then first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, p ...

in 1773. Fernandez believes it was his exceptional environment rather than 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 Raidio Teilifis Eireann he stated his opinion that a large number of people could achieve at the same level if they had the same opportunities as 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 th ...

(OEIS), the

number theory Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic functions. Number theorists study prime numbers as well as the properties of mathematical objects constructed from integers (for example ...

database established by

Neil Sloane __NOTOC__ Neil James Alexander Sloane FLSW (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 cre ...

. 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's

talk show A talk show is a television programming, radio programming or podcast genre structured around the act of spontaneous conversation.Bernard M. Timberg, Robert J. Erler'' (2010Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk Show', pp.3-4Erler, Robert (201 ...

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 Britain for most of his career. Between 1993 and his semi-retirement in 2009, his BBC Radio 2 weekday brea ...

’s and Gaby Roslin's '' The Terry and Gaby Show'' on British TV in 2003, when he beat mathematics popularizer Johnny Ball in a live

mental arithmetic Mental calculation (also known as mental computation) consists of arithmetical calculations made by the mind, within the brain, with no help from any supplies (such as pencil and paper) or devices such as a calculator. People may use mental calc ...

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

Eastern Mediterranean University The Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU; ) is a public university in Northern Cyprus, was established in 1979, led by Onay Fadıl Demirciler, who was then the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education. Initially founded as a technology-focus ...

Northern Cyprus Northern Cyprus, officially the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), is a ''de facto'' state that comprises the northeastern portion of the Geography of Cyprus, island of Cyprus. It is List of states with limited recognition, recognis ...

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, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doct ...

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''. In the ''North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is a position ...

. 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 Dir ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fernandez, Arran 1995 births Living people Academic staff of Eastern Mediterranean University Alumni of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge Alumni of Clare Hall, Cambridge British mathematicians Senior Wranglers