Hungarians had a thing for math. Contrary to rumor, this was not genetic. It couldn’t be. As anyone could see from walking down the streets of Budapest, they were absolute mongrels—the Americans of Europe. Lots of blue eyes in faces where one would otherwise not expect to see them. Expensive billboards, all over Budapest’s airports, touted the expertise, the might, the global reach of German engineering and construction firms. Engineering! Another luxury of nationalities with huge populations and intact landmasses. Hungary, severed from half of the population and most of the natural resources that it had once claimed, had now to practice a sort of economic acupuncture, striving to know the magic nodes in the global energy flow where a pinprick could alter the workings of a major organ. Mathematics was one of the few disciplines where it was possible to exert that degree of leverage, and so the Hungarians had become phenomenally good at teaching it to their children. Part of that was awarding recognition to those who excelled at it. Bartos had participated in mathematics contests that were broadcast on national television as if they were football championships. He even looked like a mathematician.