Meet the six-year-old 'maths genius' whose skills are wowing viewers
By Merryn Porter |
The COVID-19 l?ockdowns were tough on kids, and their parents, and sometimes it was a struggle to fill in the days.
So Rachel Katcher, a former fifth grade teacher turned mother-of-two from the US state of Missouri, decided to "put that teacher hat back on" for the good of her sons' educations.
But what she didn't realise straight away during those long days at home was that her youngest son, Nathan, was somewhat of a maths prodigy. And he is now garnering a following on TikTok, where he wows the internet with his problem-solving skills.
Watch the video above.
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Katcher has been posting videos of Nathan solving maths problems since late last year on the nathanthenunberkid TikTok account.
While the account only has a couple of hundred followers right now, a video she posted last week has so far attracted more than 56,000 likes.
The 44-second video shows Nathan sitting in a restaurant holding a pen that he has been using to draw. His mother then starts asking him a long maths problem as he listens intently.
"The square root of 81, times 10, divided by two, times three," she asks as Nathan looks intently at the camera before pausing to look around the room.
"What?" he asks, when he looks back at his mum, wondering why she has stopped.
"So do you have it?" she says.
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"135," he answers confidently, before she laughs and says 'OK' then continues with the problem.
"Minus 20, plus 15, minus 30, times 10, divided by two."
"500!" he exclaims, punching the air with both hands.
"Oh my goodness," she replies.
?Commenters were impressed. "This kid is going places," wrote one.
"OMG he's brilliant," said another.
"I like how you pause to let him 'catch up' but he's like, 'Go on, I'm waiting on you.' LOL," wrote another. ?
Others admitted they struggled to keep up with the young prodigy.
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"You lost me at 'The square root of 81',?" quipped one.
"I'm 45 and really proud of myself that I did it along with him," said another.
In reply to a commenter, his mother said her son loved the attention. "He would love it to go viral! Nathan is so excited to share his math skills!"
And it seems he got his wish. The video caught the attention of US media outlet, TODAY, which is a spin off of the morning TV show of the same name.
In an interview with the publication overnight, Katcher said maths was not her son's only strong suit.
He also memorised the flags of 65 countries, taught himself to play piano using an app, and knows how much each property costs in five different versions of the game Monopoly.
She can take some credit for his advancement. While homeschooling during COVID she thought it would be easier to teach him the same material as his brother Evan, who is three years older.
Later, during car rides, she noticed Nathan, then 3?, was counting school buses as they passed, but instead of starting over each trip, he kept going, soon surpassing 300, which "blew my mind."
By the time he was in Kindergarten, he began writing numbers down on a long scroll of paper at home, eventually making it to 10,000. He took the scroll to school and soon his classmates were making their own number scrolls.
Nathan loves to practise his maths problems in his mind every day with his family, whether they are at home or even in a restaurant.
Now in year one, his mum said he had already set his sights on learning calculus.
