For many it is a real taboo, a cross to be embraced throughout the school years. We are talking about mathematics, a subject hated by many, but also the result of great passion for those few remaining. Like Thomas Passera, an eighteen-year-old from Monza who has just won the Grand Prize of applied mathematics established by the Catholic University.
The best of ten thousand students
Competition is one of the most difficult in this area throughout the country. In fact, as many as ten thousand young people from five hundred Italian schools participated. But no one has managed to compete with Thomas Passera, a senior student at the Paolo Frisi high school in Applied Sciences in Monza. The boy, of an Italian father and Polish mother, easily overcame the first preselective trial, which allowed the commission to considerably reduce the number of contenders.
Only six hundred children, divided between the universities of Milan and Rome, had the opportunity to participate in the final test, which consisted of three questions to be demonstrated and five closed-ended questions, ranging from school mathematics to economics doctrine. You can imagine the great satisfaction of Thomas, who in the past had already participated in many competitions of this type (he had won the Italian title for the middle school category in the past), when the competition commission handed him the diploma in the main hall of the Catholic University.
A passion born in the mother country
Ma quando e dove nasce una passione così grande e insolita per un ragazzo nell’era dei videogame e dell’intrattenimento digitale? Sin da bambino Thomas Passera si è avvicinato a laboratori di scienze e robotica nel paese materno, la Polonia. Così si è avvicinato a quelle che sono le sue materie preferite, la matematica e la chimica. Ma la sua mente non è solo un cumulo di numeri e formule, poiché tra i suoi interessi ci sono anche la filosofia e la critica teatrale.
But when and where is a passion so great and unusual for a boy in the era of video games and digital entertainment? As a child, Thomas Passera approached science and robotics laboratories in the mother country, Poland. So he approached his favorite subjects, mathematics and chemistry. But his mind is not just a heap of numbers and formulas, since his interests include philosophy and theater criticism.
Non fate l’errore di pensare, però, che Thomas sia il tipico secchione tutto casa e studio! Nella sua vita, infatti, non mancano l’interesse per lo sport: il ragazzo, infatti, smaltisce le lunghe ore di studio con il Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, che ha cominciato dopo anni di arti marziali.
Ma cosa farà Thomas Passera da grande? L’Università Bocconi di Milano già lo aspetta, ansiosa di abbracciare un tale prodigio fra i suoi corridoi. Ma il ragazzo ha già anticipato di non voler studiare la matematica pura, ma discipline come Economia e Finanza, che possano assecondare la sua inclinazione di cercare sempre un’applicazione dei numeri alla vita reale.
E a noi non resta che fargli il più sincero in bocca al lupo!
Don’t make the mistake of thinking, however, that Thomas is the typical nerd all around the house and studio! In his life, in fact, there is no lack of interest in sport: in fact, the boy disposes of the long hours of study with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which he started after years of martial arts.
But what will Thomas Passera do when he grows up? The Bocconi University of Milan is already waiting for him, anxious to embrace such a prodigy among its corridors. But the boy has already anticipated that he does not want to study pure mathematics, but disciplines like Economics and Finance, which can support his inclination to always look for an application of numbers to real life.
And we just have to do him the most sincere good luck!
