Tathagat Avatar Tulsi

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Avatar Tulsi

Tathagat Avatar Tulsi (born September 9, 1987 in Patna, India) is a scientist but is most well known as a child prodigy and holder of a Guinness World Record. He set a hat-trick in world records in academics: he completed high school at the age of nine, earned a B.Sc. at the age of ten and a M.Sc. at the age of twelve.

At present he is a Senior Research Scientist, working for his Ph.D at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. His topic of research is quantum computing. He aims to work for society and believes that scientific innovations are the best way to do so.^{[citation needed]}

He has the special distinction of being one of the world's youngest scientists. At the age of 17, he wrote a research paper that brought him an invitation by Bell Labs of the United States to do a collaborative work with Lov Grover, inventor of a quantum search algorithm. The paper was "A New Algorithm for Fixed-point Quantum Search".

Tulsi is listed as one of the most gifted Asian youngsters by TIME magazine, mentioned as "Superteen" by SCIENCE, "Physics Prodigy" by The TIMES, "Master Mind" by The WEEK and listed by OUTLOOK as one of the smartest Indian youngsters.

Tathagat Avatar Tulsi participated in the Stock Exchange of Visions project of Fabrica, Benetton's research centre in 2007. He was invited by Luciano Benetton for a dinner in honor of Al Gore on Jun. 14, 2007 in Milano, Italy.

Tathagat's story was showcased by National Geographic Channel in the program My Brilliant Brain. The episode named "India's Geniuses" was aired on 13 Dec. 07 and was hosted by Bollywood actress Konkona Sen Sharma. A short preview is available at www.brilliantbrain.in and www.nationalgeographic.co.in

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early years

At the age of six, Tulsi performed fast mental calculations. This attracted attention of the local media and he became known as the "Mathematical Whiz kid".

The first report on Tulsi was published by Aaj (a leading Hindi daily in Bihar state) on February 14, 1994. Then, Jansatta (a Hindi daily) published a nationwide article on its front page on May 28, 1994. He started getting assistance and support from all over India. Two were most significant. First, Bihar's then Chief Minister Laloo Yadav invited Tathagat to his residence and announced a cash award and a gift of personal computer. Second, Bindeshwar Pathak gave him financial support to settle in New Delhi (capital of India) for better education prospects and opportunities.

On his sixth birthday (September 9, 1993) his father gave him a special birthday present, the bestseller, A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking which inspired him.^{[citation needed]}

On his website Tulsi says:

“

The main reason, why my father gave it to me, was because I always used to disturb him by asking questions about Universe, Earth, stars etc. I finished that book in 3 days and after which I was left only with more and more deeper questions. I came to know about Black holes, Einstein's theory and Quantum mechanics (all was very interesting for me). I started reading other popular science books (second one that I read was "In Search of Big Bang" by John Gribbin) and always used to think about these scientific questions.I was not able to focus on my school studies. I wanted to do some original research and the school studies was the biggest hurdle for me. I found school very boring and finally, I decided to finish my schoolings as soon as possible.

”