Always Far Above Any Average

Fifty-odd students in three classes, three permanent teachers, a secretary, a janitor, and two cleaning ladies as 'tenants' on the second floor of the Endowment of Persa and Risto Milenković – that was the Mathematical Gymnasium (MG) in its first year of existence and operation, in the autumn of 1966 in Belgrade, the capital of then-Yugoslavia. At that time, Saturday was also a working day in all schools in the country, with classes held six days a week. In the newly founded specialized house of knowledge for students above-average gifted in mathematics, classes began every morning at 7:15 AM. The first two hours were always some form of mathematics, supplemented and deepened compared to the teaching in regular gymnasiums, with elements of numerical mathematics, mathematical logic, programming...