Puzzles a thrill for maths
whizz
Love for numbers runs in the family
for S'pore boy who topped international contest
Matthias Chew
The obsession with mind-bending conundrums came early.
A favourite childhood activity for Singaporean student
Lim Jeck, who won the International Mathematical Olympiad last
week, was to create puzzles for others to solve.
A peek into a jotter book belonging to the then
10-year-old reveals drawings of intricate mazes, ranging from
squiggly lines to the three-dimensional.
Now 17, his interest in unravelling puzzles has not
abated. His favourite maths topics - geometry and combinatorics,
which is the study of permutations and combinations - are
relatively light on theories and formulae. To excel in those areas,
one needs a logical mind and problem-solving skills.
His bent in navigating spatial and logical challenges
helped propel Jeck to the top of the Olympiad in Argentina a week
ago, beating 547 other pre-university students from 100
countries.
He is the first Singaporean to do so. In the process, the
National University of Singapore (NUS) High School student attained
a perfect score, also a first for a Singaporean, and the only one
in this year's contest, which attracts the brightest young
mathematical minds from around the globe.
But he is not done.
He is aiming to compete again at next year's Olympiad,
which will be the last he qualifies for, as he is due to graduate
from NUS High next year as well.
The thought of repeating his feat does not faze him. Said
Jeck: "I have one year to prepare for that and I will be ready for
the challenge."
With the contest setting the hardest questions in the
last two years in both his pet topics, it played to the Year 5
student's strengths.
Jeck came close last year, but missed out on a perfect
score by a mere two points 'because I was not careful'. The result?
He was second overall.
Even then, it was the best showing by any Singaporean,
till his first place finish this year.
An interview with the Lim family at their Stirling Road
condominium yesterday revealed a gifted teenager who prefers
computer games to cramming for tests.
"He doesn't study too hard, but somehow manages to do
well," said his mother, Madam Ng Bee Yong, 47, who runs an IT
software firm with Jeck's father, Mr Lim Beng Cheng, 51.
She said his As come in maths, physics, chemistry and
computing, but he gets Bs and the occasional C for languages.
Jeck, however, is reticent in person, and it was his
older sister, Min, who revealed that his other hobbies are reading
and watching anime, and solving jigsaw puzzles.
He was more forthcoming on e-mail. Asked who he would
credit for developing his talent in maths, he singled out his
family. "Without their guidance and support I wouldn't have come so
far."
His sisters, Min, 18, who is in JC 2 at Raffles
Institution, and Li, 13, in Secondary 1 at NUS High, are both also
mathematically inclined.
The siblings are a fixture at local maths competitions,
and Min also represented Singapore at the China Girls Maths
Olympiad last year.
But like many boys his age, Jeck's mind these days is not
on maths so much as the online game Minecraft.
The multi-player game allows players to build structures,
and Jeck exploits the game's lack of limits to create complex
puzzles for his friends to manoeuvre out of.
Indeed, playing Minecraft was the first thing Jeck did
when he arrived home from Argentina on Wednesday.
While he has yet to decide where and what to study at
university, one thing has not changed from when he was a little
boy. He said he "would like to make maths, as well as computing, my
career".
home, The Sunday Times, July 22 2012, Pg 20