Bengaluru, July 12: Tathagat Avatar Tulsi, yesterday’s child prodigy has grown up! At 22, he joins the faculty of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai, next week.
Taking up this assignment ends the confusion in the young professor’s mind on whether to set up a computer lab at home in Patna or migrate to Waterloo University, Canada, to pursue his dream of designing superfast computers.
At IIT, he will receive a grant of Rs 10 lakh to support his research in quantum computing.
“My goal is to do outstanding research, so I hope to get some positive results in developing the software for quantum computers in the next two-three years and seek funds for a bigger laboratory,” he told this newspaper.
Last year, Tulsi joined a select global group of mathematicians and physicists who secured their Ph.D at 21. They include John Forbes Nash Jr., the MIT mathematician who got his Ph.D in mathematics when he was 21, and whose life story turned into the Hollywood film A Beautiful Mind.
Says Tulsi: “I am lucky and very happy to have landed a faculty position at IIT, Mumbai,” explaining how he was turned away by IIT-Delhi, and Patna, as well as his alma mater, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), where he secured his doctorate. This was notwithstanding his world records: passing high school at 9, B.Sc at 11 and M.Sc at 12.
His ultimate dream? “Who knows, the Nobel Prize,” says India’s youngest professor.