She Was a Prodigy. 'Pappoulis' Became Obsessed With Her

You might expect the tale of a child prodigy would be an incredible one. But the story of Promethea Olympia Kyrene Pythaitha—born Jasmine Li Lysistrata, she gave herself the Greek name as she graduated from Montana State University with a math degree at age 13—is almost unimaginable. Raised by a single mom named Georgia Smith, Promethea was reading Charles Dickens before kindergarten, but when it came to math, her skills were mind-blowing. 

She enrolled in Stanford's distance-learning program for gifted children and completed a calculus course before age 8; program officials were so fearful the child was a hoax that a math teacher was dispatched to Montana to make sure the girl was the genuine article. The teacher's assessment: She's "at least ten times brighter than the brightest student I've had."

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