This Genius Is a Bit Quiet

When Shen Jiming was seven years old, he lay on the floor of the living room and looked at the floor tiles. "Mom, this seam is wider than the other one." Mother said casually: "So what." Twenty years later, he proved an unresolved conjecture in number theory. Someone asked him when he first became interested in mathematics. He said: "It probably started by looking at the seams in the floor tiles." This is not a story about a genius crushing the world. This is the story of a genius learning how to get along with the world.