Starting in 2000 (aged five), Fernandez had several sequences published in the
On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS), the
number theory database established by
Neil Sloane. Prior to university, Fernandez was
educated at home, predominantly by his father, the radical educationalist Neil Fernandez. In 2001, he broke the age record for gaining a
General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), the English academic qualification usually taken at age 16, for which he sat the examinations aged five. In 2003, he became the youngest person ever to gain an
A* grade at GCSE, also for Mathematics. In 2001, Fernandez appeared as a "Person of the Week" on
Frank Elstner's
talk show on German TV. In 2003, he appeared on
Terry Wogan's and
Gaby Roslin's
The Terry and Gaby Show on British TV, when he beat mathematics populariser
Johnny Ball in a live
mental arithmetic contest, successfully extracting the
fifth roots of several large integers. Fernandez believes it was his
exceptional environment, rather than exceptional nature, that enabled him to achieve his academic successes. "Everything I achieved is because of my education and the opportunities I had. And the big part of my story is that I never went to school. My parents never believed in the official education system." In June 2013, he became that year's
Senior Wrangler at the
University of Cambridge, aged 18 years and 6 days. He is thought to be the youngest Senior Wrangler ever. == Academic career ==