Hi, I'm Familiar. I've realized I've been somewhat indirect about introducing myself, so I decided it's time to be more clear about it.

“Familiar” is my burn name, which you are welcome and encouraged to use outside of burns.

It’s also just kinda part of my identity at this point.

And, to be clear, I am also Abhi. Both names are names for me. As long as you know both my names, you are welcome to call my by either. I really enjoy when people mix it up.

Now that I’m already talking about myself, this seems like a good opportunity to share some information more clearly than I have previously:

I got pretty good at math from a young age, and I think a major factor was having the desire and the tools to fuck around and find out. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, they don’t teach those tools in school here. I’m actually not sure where I learned them from. Definitely not from my parents. Anyway, I would like to teach them to people here.

In 8th grade, I took the ACT, one of the college entrance exams in the US. I didn’t study or know much about the test. I don’t remember why I was signed up for it.

I scored 31 composite, a top 2% score compared against high school seniors. I believe many of those seniors did study for the test. A high school senior with that score would be eligible to join Mensa (I have not).

I scored 32 on the math section, a top 1% score. I was in Algebra 1 and had never heard of many things in that test. I was, however, good at fucking around and finding out, and evidently guessed or reasoned out answers to questions with terms/symbols that I’d never heard of (like the trig functions).

I was also the kind of smarty pants who would sit and derive the quadratic formula in the same class period where he learned there was one.

I went to a high school for smarty pants - the Illinois Math and Science Academy (IMSA), a phenomenal boarding school that cost $600 per year total, which included meals.

I didn’t have the smartest of pants, but I was up there. I considered myself the third smartest (whatever that means) in my class, which had 3 perfect SAT scores (including me), three Intel Science Talent Search finalists (including me), three Harvard acceptances (not including me), and two kids named Abhi (he was way more “popular”, but he was also trying to be).

I got to pursue math research with a professor at the University of Chicago, László Babai (who insisted I call him Laci). I got bussed to the university most Wednesdays (which IMSA students had off from class, with an expectation to pursue “inquiry” during that time). I’d read math books in the library and/or just be spacey for most of the day, and would meet with him for an hour or so most weeks I was there. He taught me a lot. It helped that I was a fast learner.

Sometimes I’d sit in on his classes. The first time I sat in on a class called Algorithms happened to be a test day, so I took the test. He told me I got the highest score. I’m not sure I believe him, considering it was a mixed grad/undergrad class.

We started working on a paper about coloring together. He was instrumental in identifying a research problem/area for us to work on - one that wasn’t already all mapped out, and which was likely to have novel results that a high schooler could prove. He didn’t meaningfully help me with any of the proofs, but he did teach me lots of the theory that I used to prove things.

The title of the paper was “Coloring Finite Abelian Groups to Avoid Monochromatic Solutions to a Given Equation”. I don’t expect you to know what any of that means, but I do hope you’ll be open to trying to learn when I try to teach you.

The paper was legitimate math research; I proved things that had not been proved before. Several university professors told me I should publish it (I did not) and were excited about the prospect of me pursuing a career in academic mathematics (I did not, although I tried, kinda).

The paper is the biggest accomplishment of my life, although I certainly didn’t expect it to be that at the time.

Laci would grab random papers from his desk to use as scratch paper. I have a binder full of sheets of paper that are half something printed and half handwritten math. Some of that handwriting is mine, and the rest is his.