He was a brilliant Mathematics student. And surprise, surprise! He can speak Russian.
Lee Hsien Loong was the Senior Wrangler (ranked 1st in the Math Tripos, the famously difficult Cambridge undergraduate Mathematics course) at Cambridge. He scored 31 alphas, 12 more alphas than the runner up.
'He graduated at the top of his class, and he really won by a street. The one who came second has now ...become a world-class mathematician, but it was clear to everyone at the time who was the better one.'
-– Prof. Béla Bollobás (LHL's teacher), University of Cambridge in 1994
"Loong was not only hardworking, conscientious and professional, but he was also very inventive. All the signs indicated that he would have been a world-class research mathematician. I’m sure his father never realized how exceptional Loong was. He thought Loong was very good. No, Loong was much better than that. When I tried to tell Lee Kuan Yew, 'Look, your son is phenomenally good: you should encourage him to do mathematics,' then he implied that that was impossible, since as a top-flight professional mathematician Loong would leave Singapore for Princeton, Harvard or Cambridge, and that would send the wrong signal to the people in Singapore."
--- Prof. Béla Bollobás, University of Cambridge in 2007
He finished the Math Tripos in 2 years instead of 3, having been exempted from the first year of the Tripos.
When Trinity College in Cambridge offered him a fellowship to become a mathematician and teach maths there. He wrote to his tutor and said, “I must go home. I’ve joined the Singapore Armed Forces, my father’s the PM, and for me not to go home and do what I have to do would be bad for the country and bad for me.”
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Lee Hsien Loong was the Senior Wrangler (ranked 1st in the Math Tripos, the famously difficult Cambridge undergraduate Mathematics course) at Cambridge. He scored 31 alphas, 12 more alphas than the runner up.
'He graduated at the top of his class, and he really won by a street. The one who came second has now ...become a world-class mathematician, but it was clear to everyone at the time who was the better one.'
-– Prof. Béla Bollobás (LHL's teacher), University of Cambridge in 1994
"Loong was not only hardworking, conscientious and professional, but he was also very inventive. All the signs indicated that he would have been a world-class research mathematician. I’m sure his father never realized how exceptional Loong was. He thought Loong was very good. No, Loong was much better than that. When I tried to tell Lee Kuan Yew, 'Look, your son is phenomenally good: you should encourage him to do mathematics,' then he implied that that was impossible, since as a top-flight professional mathematician Loong would leave Singapore for Princeton, Harvard or Cambridge, and that would send the wrong signal to the people in Singapore."
--- Prof. Béla Bollobás, University of Cambridge in 2007
He finished the Math Tripos in 2 years instead of 3, having been exempted from the first year of the Tripos.
When Trinity College in Cambridge offered him a fellowship to become a mathematician and teach maths there. He wrote to his tutor and said, “I must go home. I’ve joined the Singapore Armed Forces, my father’s the PM, and for me not to go home and do what I have to do would be bad for the country and bad for me.”
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