Dr Rehan Shah delivered an enthralling mathematics outreach talk titled 'The One with 3 Problems and 1 Answer' to a large group of over 150 Year 9-11 school students as an invited external guest speaker for British Science Week 2026 at Trinity School, Croydon on Wednesday 11th March 2026.

Building on his experience as a former secondary school teacher of mathematics, Dr Shah modelled his talk around the theme of curiosity and prompted students to evaluate which of the two i.e. the question/problem or the answer/solution was the more important. This was motivated by illustrating to students, through presenting them with three seemingly unrelated mathematical problems, all of which led to the exact same answer, that as one transcends from school to university, it is the question (particularly when solving more involved, research-based conundrums) that assumes far more importance than the answer (which while still significant, tends to arise as the byproduct of a suitably focused question), unlike the narrative commonly taught to students at school-level mathematics.

The talk featured highly interactive modes of problem-solving in which students actively participated to understand the significance of the Golden Ratio in mathematics. After his talk, Dr Shah was also subsequently invited to answer individual questions from small groups of keen and motivated students in a roundtable discussion, where he discussed his own career progression within mathematics. Dr Jack Manchester (Teacher of Chemistry and Head of STEM) at the school noted how Dr Shah's talk proved to be hugely inspiring for several students and the school posted a detailed overview of the events through the week on their school page.

Dr Shah's talk was then also filmed and recorded digitally by the SEMS Outreach and Marketing team and posted as a Youtube video and on the SEMS prospective students website as a taster lecture for use for the School's online open day events.