The First Surprise

November 10, 2019

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“Baba’esan ... Baba’esan” was the repeated sound that was pulling me out of my sweet dream world. 

“Baba’esan” This was how my five and a half year-old son used to call me (still does). It wasn’t too early in the morning, but it was Sunday and Mortaza had got up earlier than I and, apparently, he had something urgent to tell me. Since I didn’t show signs of waking up, he started to shake me with both hands while repeating “Baba’son”. I was still half way in my dream world, when I croaked with my eyes still shot  “what is it?” He then said something very fast that I, still not being fully awake, didn’t catch. In an attempt to slip back to my dream world, I didn’t say anything. Then I heard again “BABA?” this time loader. It was clear from his tone that he expected some sort of reaction or a reply from me. Realizing that my attempts to go back to sleep was pointless, I gathered my will power and opened my eyes and said “what is it dear?” while groping for my glasses on the bed stand. When I managed to put my glasses on, his face came into focus, a face full of anticipation and maybe a little annoyed, still waiting for an answer. 

“Good morning dear” I said with a smile. “What were you saying?” 

“I said, do you know what the sum of all even numbers up to 20 is?” he replied.

This time I understood the words, but my brain, still not fully functional, didn’t comprehend the concept. Looking at my puzzled face, he repeated, while articulating his words in an exasperated way, “THE SUM OF ALL EVEN NUMBERS UP TO 20.”

It was such a curious question. After all, I had never seen, before this moment, any sign of real interest in math, let alone this level of excitement. True, he was always very excited about any science related topic, getting immersed in YouTube videos about a wide range of topics from the immune system of the human body to how tectonic plates move over time to create earthquakes and volcano eruptions. But it was never about math. In fact, until a few weeks earlier, he seemed to be somehow slow when it came to math. My wife had a very difficult time teaching him the simplest possible thing; counting from one to ten. Something that had occasionally worried us. 

To give myself thinking time, I repeated his question slowly “the sum of all even numbers up to 20?”. I couldn’t focus on finding an answer, because I couldn’t get over the strangeness of the question. It was just mere weeks or a month before that time, when he had difficulty remembering what number came after six. Admittedly, in recent weeks, he started getting better at math becoming more comfortable with numbers and how they are related to each other, doing some basic summation and very simple multiplications. But still he didn’t show any interest when I tried to teach him, a few days earlier, the difference between even and odd numbers. So, I couldn’t understand where this question had come from.

I couldn’t also figure out whether he asked me this question since he could not find the answer, or if he wanted to impress me by showing he knew the answer. But being a professor for 13 years, I had a few tricks up my sleeve to get out of sticky situations, like when you were asked a question to which you didn’t have an answer ready. So, I diverted the question to him. “Now dear, what do YOU think the answer could be?”

He replied without even a blink “110” and smiled.

Looking at my dumbstruck face for a few moments while looking as if he was about to explode with anticipation, he gave up any hope that I would ask him how he had known the answer, and rushed on “Yesterday, mom and I added numbers one to ten and it was 55. Then I multiplied all the numbers by 2.”

 

Later on, I realized that the surprising aspect of this encounter was not how he managed to find a way to calculate the sum of all even numbers without adding them up one by one, which was unusual by itself, but the fact that he came up with the question in the first place. No one asked him to answer this question. Somehow this question had been formed in his mind. How? It is still a mystery to me. 

I took the note below as a record of our conversation.