Unpublished photos of Dr. Le Ba Khanh Trinh

Dr. Le Ba Khanh Trinh was born in 1962 in Hue , known by the nickname "golden boy of Vietnamese mathematics".

At the 1979 International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) in England, he won a Gold Medal with a perfect score of 40/40, and also won a special prize with a solution that was considered the most unique and creative of the year. To this day, he remains the only Vietnamese student to win a special prize in an international Math competition.

After that victory, he entered the Faculty of Mathematics, Moscow State University. In a rigorous and standardized academic environment, he was guided by Professor, Academician Andrey Aleksandrovich Gonchar. Under the guidance of the famous professor, Le Ba Khanh Trinh completed his graduation thesis and then his doctoral thesis.

Returning to Vietnam in the early years of renovation, he began his teaching career. For nearly 40 years in the classroom, he worked at the Gifted High School and the University of Natural Sciences - Ho Chi Minh City National University, becoming a teacher of thousands of students. He was a person with in-depth knowledge, a calm demeanor and rare dedication, making generations of students remember him with special respect.

Not only teaching, Dr. Le Ba Khanh Trinh is also the soul of the movement to nurture excellent students in Mathematics in Vietnam. For many years, he has been the head of the delegation or a member of the coaching board of the national IMO team, leading many students to international glory. Many of his students have now become doctors and researchers at major universities around the world .

What makes Le Ba Khanh Trinh most respected by his colleagues and students is not his halo but his absolute simplicity and humility. He rarely mentions his achievements, always considering the 1979 IMO victory as just “a beautiful milestone” in his youth, and what is more important is how a teacher helps the next generation find their own path. With nearly 40 years dedicated to the blackboard and white chalk, teaching, he has become a special example - a teacher who does not care about fame, a teacher who values the maturity of his students.

In a recent interview with VietNamNet reporter , Dr. Le Ba Khanh Trinh said that 40 years of being a teacher, teaching and nurturing many generations of excellent students was an arduous journey, but it was these hardships that gave him a lot of motivation to study and work. He was fortunate to be able to teach and accompany students who were both obedient and intelligent, had a good foundation and behavior. They were very polite, thoughtful and especially had sharp thinking. His work was completed well in large part thanks to the system of specialized schools - where excellent students were selected so that he had the opportunity to bond with, support and help them develop.

According to him, a teacher who wants to go far must have internal motivation. Otherwise, the teacher is very easily bored and becomes bland. Teachers must always seek and improve themselves in the process of teaching with students. Motivation is sometimes very mysterious. For him, the ideal of finding "God's solution" is the greatest motivation. He and his students silently search together for the solution - the solution that books describe as the most optimal, profound and most elite. That common ideal makes teachers and students bond, learn from each other and respect each other, even though everything happens very quietly.

In teaching, he always values fairness. Therefore, he reminds himself that to last and progress, there must be fairness. There is no such thing as better students being favored over better students. He never lets his students think that someone is his “favorite”. All students are treated equally.

Recently, Dr. Le Ba Khanh Trinh shared with VietNamNet reporters some pictures of his "vibrant youth":