Meet 12-year-old British-Nigerian kid who became the youngest Mathematics scholar after discovering new formula
A 12-year-old Nigerian boy, Chika Ofili, has been awarded as an Academic Hero at the Tru Little Hero Awards for his historic discovery of a new way to divide in Mathematics.
The UK-based chap received the award in November 2019, for finding a new formula for divisibility by 7 in Mathematics.
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Chika discovered that if the last digit of a whole number is multiplied by 5 and added to the remaining part of the number, what would be gotten is a new number.
If the new number can be divided by 7, it then means the original number is divisible by 7.
The bright kid was allowed to demonstrate his discovery before the school faculty after which his Mathematics teacher, Mary Ellis, got a mathematics guru to test Chika’s theory.
It was discovered by the guru, Simon Ellis, that the theory works if one starts by multiplying the last digit by 12, 19, 26, 33, etc, and also add that to the remainder of the number.
Meanwhile, Chika’s Maths teacher, Mary Ellis, who doubles as the HOD, Mathematics Department, Westminster Under School, revealed that he made the discovery after a holiday assignment.
Mary Ellis in an article said she gave Chika a book called First Steps for Problem Solvers (published by the UKMT) to study during the holidays.
The book contained several divisibility tests used to speedily check if a number is exactly divisible by either 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 before one starts dividing.
Chika however noticed that the book didn’t contain a memorable test listed for checking divisibility by 7.
This led to his Chika’s creation of a new method to fill the vacuum.
Chika’s 2019 award was widely celebrated, especially by the Nigeria In Diaspora Commission who congratulated him through their official Twitter handle.
