Seattle math whiz wins when it counts

The numbers weren't looking good for Adam Hesterberg in the final round of the national MATHCOUNTS competition in Chicago yesterday.

He was down 3-0.

To win the championship, he had to solve the next four problems in a row faster than his opponent. So he decided that as soon as the next question was asked, he would hit the buzzer. That would give him five seconds to calculate the answer.

The strategy worked.

Adam, 13, an eighth-grader at Washington Middle School in Seattle, solved the four problems and won the contest that has been called "the Super Bowl" of middle-school math competition.

The 228 students who competed were the best of 35,000 young mathematicians who participated in local and state MATHCOUNTS contests. MATHCOUNTS is a Virginia-based nonprofit that promotes math education. This is its 20th annual competition.

Adam helped power Washington state's team to an eighth-place finish yesterday. Other team members, all eighth-graders, were Andrew Gu of Lakeside School in Seattle, Joel Turtle of Lincoln Middle School in Pullman and Jeffrey Wang of Issaquah Middle School. The team was coached by Lakeside math teacher Al Lippert.

Hesterberg's victory was no surprise. Last year, he placed fifth in the nationals — ahead of all other seventh-graders.

Adam began taking an online Advanced Placement calculus course this semester after he ran through the last high-school-level math class offered at his school. He plans to follow his father, a statistician, into a career in mathematics.

Washington Middle School Principal Marilyn Day calls him "fantastically gifted" in math.

"He has pi memorized out to about 250 digits, and every time I see him he has a problem for me to try to solve, which generally I have trouble doing," says the school's math-department chairman, Matt Buchanan.

Even in a phone conversation, it's apparent he knows he's talented, he doesn't try to hide it, and he seems comfortable with who he is.

Adam's math talents became obvious at age 2, when he figured out how to read the page numbers in a book of nursery rhymes. At 5, he could convert a base 10 number into base 2, his parents say.

In kindergarten, he made spelling more interesting by inventing his own system, which left the teacher thinking he couldn't spell. He's also interested in computer games and politics. ("I'm far left," he says.)

"My three favorite things are doing math problems, giving math problems to people and making up math problems," Adam says.

Adam feels at home in the Accelerated Progress Program that Seattle schools offer for the city's most gifted students.

"Washington Middle School is a wonderful school where people are excited," says Tim Hesterberg, Adam's father. "Being surrounded by the other kids is wonderful. Before, we had him in a private school, and they just couldn't challenge him the way the Seattle public schools do."

But Adam and his parents are concerned that Garfield High School, which he will attend next year, may discontinue its higher-level calculus classes because of budget cuts.

With his victory, Adam won an $8,000 college scholarship, a trip to the U.S. Space Camp (which he will miss if it conflicts with math camp), an inkjet printer and a notebook computer.

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com