Dost young people are quite proud when they have passed their Abitur at the age of 18 or 19. Many then need a break and spend time abroad to find out how their lives should go on. It was different with Yanik Kleibrink. Even at primary school he knew what interested him the most. When the eighteen-year-old talks about mathematics, terms such as fun and joy immediately come to mind, literally bubbling out of the young man, who usually formulates rather carefully.
At the age of twelve he began studying mathematics at the Goethe University in Frankfurt – parallel to his schooling. He skipped fifth grade. He did his bachelor’s degree in mathematics at the same time as he graduated from high school, and he has also had his master’s degree for three months. And now he’s getting his PhD. “Geometry of modular spaces of flat surfaces” is the working title of his doctoral thesis. He is a research assistant to Professor Martin Möller, who supported Kleibrink from the start and took him under his wing. He describes what he is doing as follows: “If you cut a polygon out of a sheet of paper and turn the sides several times and look at all possible gluing, the sum of the angles does not always have to be 360 degrees.” Most non-mathematicians will probably get out by now. In any case, his research is also connected to physical theories of gravitation. Because he is currently writing a bachelor’s thesis in physics.
Kleibrink’s father moved to Florida as a qualified engineer in 2012 and took the family with him. The mother is a doctor, the younger sister is also very enthusiastic about mathematics, says her brother. In any case, the teachers at the American elementary school quickly recognized his talent and encouraged him accordingly. “The school system there is more open than in Germany, and so I was able to complete all math courses up to the twelfth grade by the seventh grade,” he says. When the family returned to Germany six years ago and he came to the Gymnasium am Riedberg, he had already completed the material up to the Abitur.
Swim to clear your head
So his parents were looking for new opportunities and challenges for their son and found out that the university law allows so-called student studies for gifted students like Yanik. “I didn’t have to take a test, I just had to talk to the head of the mathematical institute.” The student course is actually intended as an offer for high-performing high school students and is possible in most courses. Special conditions apply to some natural science courses. However, Yanik was only twelve when he applied – and was immediately accepted.
From then on, a tight program began for the young mathematician: the school timetable and lectures, seminars and tutorials at the Goethe University had to be coordinated. He was able to commute easily by subway between Riedberg, his favorite campus, and Bockenheim, where he now has his office as a research assistant on Robert-Mayer-Strasse. “It wasn’t that complicated because I only had afternoon classes twice a week and could then simply pick out courses for the other afternoons.”
At school, he continued to attend mathematics classes. “I then helped my classmates or explained something again, everyone liked that,” he says. As a school team swimmer in Florida, dolphin and front crawl were his favorite disciplines, in Germany he still occasionally likes to swim in the Seedammbad in Bad Homburg. He also likes to play tennis to clear his head. Neither at school nor at university was he ever called a nerd or a math nerd. “When I was significantly younger than everyone else at the age of twelve, many people met me with great astonishment and I was often asked how I could have done it, that I could go to university at such a young age.” He was twice National winner in the math competition for schools, won the silver medal in the international mathematics olympiad.
Kleinbrink wants to continue working in research and teaching at the university in the future. “I’m still young,” he says, laughing. Until now, Peter Scholze, who is regarded as an exceptional mathematical genius, has been the youngest professor with a chair in mathematics in Germany. He was 24 when he accepted a professorship at the University of Bonn in 2012. Until then, Yanik Kleibrink still has six years to go.
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