This is the latest hot story in the internet - Hannan Binth Hashim, the wondergirl! The whole episode is really so amusing that I just can't believe it and I am going to question the credibility of this story. So if this is indeed true, I owe a big apology to her. It could be also possible that it is partly true and it was exaggerated by some of the bloggers and news papers.
I read it first in the Malayalam daily, 'Mathrubhumi', which is one of the most respected news papers, known for sticking to journalism ethics and all those funky words which one can use when describing a reputed news paper. So when you read any news from such a source you don't have to doubt the credibility of the news; you read it and you take it all, is not? On the first read, I was all praise for the young talent. Questioning Einstein!!?? Doubt the Bing bang theory!! All at the age of 15!!!!! And here is me. I remembered that the video lectures about Special Relativiy theory from a Stanford University professor I downloaded from youtube is still sitting in my laptop. I have not even watched the first 5 minutes of that entire lecture series. Right click -> Properties : 'date created' and 'last accessed' are the same ;-) some six months back! I am the one who couldn't go past the second chapter of 'Brief history of time'. And this 15 year old girl.. My my!! And she is a fellow Indian!! I got goose bumps!! Motivated, I got back to my work, testing my code. Bloody hell!! The processor is still not willing to yield. I spent an hour on the bloody board still with no result. I am not good.. I felt like giving up. Motivation! that is what I need. Hmm, I know an easy source of motivation now, don't I? I opened 'Mathrubhumi' website and started reading the article about Hannan again.
What?? Hold on!! She designed a rocket? And NASA launched it?? Was it not there when I read it last time? Or did I not see it because of the excitement? Now that is unreal! She was supposed to be researching in theoretical physics and astro-physics. What has it got to do with designing space crafts? I read the article again. She graduated from NASA! Well, she is holding the graduate certificate as well. I zoomed in the pic, it says 'Space school graduate'. Googled it; couldn't find anything. The article quotes her mother saying that it took 13 days of exams and experiments and presenting papers at NASA's space school in Houston to achieve that. Okay, so NASA's space school in Houston then, googled again. Wow, NASA do have a space school in Houston. I opened the first link:
The space centre is the official visitor's centre of NASA's Johnson Space Centre in Houston:
So do they have a school where they award graduate degrees? Aha! they do indeed! I read on..
Well well! it doesn't look like a real graduate degree! The space centre is really like an exhibition centre. School students can join for a five day course for a fee, where in they do different team activities - designing rockets etc (nothing too technical as depicted in the numerous Hannan related blogs and articles). And at the end of the school which is after the pre-mentioned five days, they award a certificate of graduation. It is this certificate which the girl (Hannan or who ever really that is) in the picture is holding! I am not certainly getting much motivation here!
I googled for all Hannan related articles. All those come up were from Indian bloggers or some Indian news sites. Some says she has papers presented in MIT, University of Boston etc. Mathrubhumi says she is going to join MIT as a student. So from tenth standard to a graduation in MIT then? I searched the websites of all these universities and NASA where she supposedly has presented papers on Astrophysics. Couldn't find anything about her. Searched in the Siemens Westinhouse Science and Technology Competition site where she is supposed to compete with other students. Couldn't find her details at all. Why am I not surprised now? One last try - searched for Dr. Soumya Vasudevan who is a Hind Rattan winner - Hannan's mentor as described in the article. Wikipedia doesn't list that name among the Hind rattan winners, but that is not really an exhaustive list. So I searched again. Initially when I posted this article the first time, I didn't find any details about her. After some googling I got the details of Dr.Sowmya Viswanathan (note the difference in name), who is a Hind Rattan award winner, but she is a medical practitioner. I also noticed that the 'American Journal of Theoretical Physics' where Hannan's papers are going to get published, never existed.
Hmmm.. I think I will call it a day and test my code tomorrow.
By evening Mathrubhumi has published another news about educational minister calling to congratulate Hannan! What?? Well, I don't know. I am all the more bemused! What is it? A true story or a hoax?
