La Voz

Issue date: 4/24/06 Section: Features

De Anza College student Alex Flury shows off his love for his favorite band, the Beatles. Flury is president of the Math Club.

May 8, 2006


Meet Alex Flury, an ambitious math and computer science major, De Anza College Math Club president and Beatles lover at heart.

He is applying to prestigious universities at age 17. Having attended Los Gatos High School for two years, he went to Beach High in Southern California for 10 days, where he was evaluated and allowed to graduate at 15.

He has been studying at De Anza since the summer of 2004. He applied to Stanford University, MIT, and others, and has been accepted to University of California Berkeley.

Mathematics professor Farshod Mosh has seen Flury's MIT and CalTech entrance exam and said Flury did not use any scratch paper.

While at De Anza, Flury's calculus professor recommended he join the Math Club, where students are given one week to solve challenging real-life mathematics problems involving probability or logic.

Frank P. Soler, Math Club adviser and math instructor, describe Flury as "unpretentious and friendly … I see him help a variety of students in the Math Tutorial Center."

Flury also tutors math at www. math2.org/mmb.

Professor Mosh said Flury usually dons math problem Tshirts as part of his attire.

Math Club adviser Vladimir Logvinenko said that because of Flury, students present the problems and instructors listen and try to solve them, instead of the other way around as it occured before.

"It makes an excellent learning atmosphere," Logvinenko said. Flury ranked among the best nationwide in this school year's competition of the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges, Logvinenko said.

Flury said what he likes best about math: "Anything that anyone asserts about math can be verified with enough patience and knowledge and it can be understood."

The field of computer science also appeals to him. "If you write code that is logically correct, then the computer will always do exactly what you expect it to do," he said. Besides having an unwavering love for logic, Flury also takes intense interest in the Beatles. He says he listens to all of their albums every three weeks.

Because he can play piano, guitar, bass guitar and drums, he and three friends were able to create a Beatles tribute band called the Symmetric Zebras in eighth grade.

The band's Web site www.TheSymmetricZebras.com was born, for which Flury learned JavaScript and Perl to add features such as sounds and a message board.

Photos on the Web site, in which "favourite" is dutifully spelled the English way, feature the four friends performing, displaying their dyed hair and posing on Halloween as mirror images of the Beatles, blacks suits and all.

In addition to math and music, Flury said he finds himself thinking about philosophy and cosmology. For example, he discusses the beginning and end of the universe.

"I don't see why [the universe] necessarily had a beginning," he said.

Despite being accepted at UC Berkeley, Flury wants to attend Stanford University because of the environment on the campus. He calls it an "exhilarating experience driving down Alpine Road toward the campus, a route that so many incredible people often take."

His career plans include designing software and solving more problems.

"He reminds me of Amadeushe doesn't make any mistakes," Mosh said

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