Street Kid Makes Math Look Easy

 

For most student, Math is hard. Not for one street kid in Manila. The kid, who has only been identified so far as "Gerald", recently found himself becoming an unlikely internet sensation when a video of him solving mathematical problem blew up on everyone's social media feeds. The fact that he had no formal education puts normal schoolchildren's mathematical abilities to shame. (or: The fact that he had no formal education would make normal schoolchildren take their math lessions seriously.)

In the amateur clip, uploaded online by Chelsea Mae S. Luzanta on her Facebook account on July 25, 2014, the boy, wearing a plastic on his head, answers every mathematical problem thrown at him by a group of University of Santo Tomas (UST) students easily-without pen or paper or calculator and almost without biding his time. He further wows his "audience" by showing off his knowledge of perfect squares and imaginary numbers.

Online commentors who've seen the video later confirmed that the boy math wizard can be found in the Dapitan area near UST. He is said to have went up to the group, who were on their way to a dormitory, to ask for coins, telling them that he's good in math. When the students asked if he could solve basic multiplication problems, he told them he would rather solve square root problems.

Not only did Gerald get rewarded with coins by the group, he also amazed netizens that the video quickly went viral. And although some have expressed doubts about the authenticity of the clip, some are also vocal in their hopes that it would attract the attention of institutions that would be kind enough to give the child prodigy a scholarship.