At 22, wonder boy joins IIT faculty

BANGALORE: Tathagat Tulsi, 22 years, Assistant Professor, IIT Bombay.

Find it unbelievable? It would have been if it was not Tulsi.

For a boy who finished high school (Class X) at the age of 9, this is just another feather on his cap.

"I will join IIT Bombay on 19 July. Besides that, I have offers from Waterloo University, Canada, and IISER, Bhopal," he said. "But I chose IITBombay because of my desire to work at a wellestablished institute in India."

Tulsi will teach students of his age or elder than him at the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay.

He became the youngest Phd holder in India and was awarded the degree in Quantum theory (Physics) for his thesis "Generalisation of Quantum Search Algorithm' by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore.

"As far as my research is concerned, the plan is to understand the real power of quantum computers," he said. "The question is: Can quantum computers solve the NP problems a set of toughest problems in computer science that has a wide range of industrial, military, biological and reallife applications."

He said he also plans to set up a worldclass laboratory in India, which will be aimed towards developing a largescale quantum computer.

"NP stands for Nondeterministic Polynomial," he said. "This is a technical name for a set of around thousand hard problems of computer science. Each hard problem has important applications in industry as well as other sectors."