AMP SCHOOL

Accelerated Math and Physics (AMP) Press Release & FAQ

Now Streaming: Accelerated Math and Physics (AMP) Program for K-12 Students

October 21, 2025 at 5:50 AM EDT

A world-class education in math, physics, and computer science at the quality level of the MIT, Stanford, and UC Berkeley undergraduate programs – available to any student, anywhere in the world, starting at the age of 4 when they start to read and ending at age 18.  The emphasis is on understanding nature and then building everything from simple levers, pulleys, rockets, and circuits to the future world of robots, space stations, fusion reactors, programmable matter, automated factories, and hospitals.

The Accelerated Math and Physics Program is available for free (or the nominal costs of printed materials, cheap experimental tools, and a netbook with internet access).

“Behind it all is surely an idea so simple, so beautiful, that when we grasp it – in a decade, a century, or a millennium – we will all say to each other, how could it have been otherwise?” John Archibald Wheeler, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 480 (1986)

BERKELEY–Oct. 21, 2025– AMP Education today introduced the Accelerated Math and Physics Program (AMP), an on-demand educational curriculum that redefines the K-12 math, physics, and computer science education by putting a self-directed list of readings, lectures, experiments, books, and programs in the hands of any child, anywhere in the world.  The Accelerated Math and Physics Program makes learning math, physics, and computer science, doing experiments and conducting research, and discovering how nature works easier and more fun than ever with a simple website and the facilitation of groups for social learning.

“Many American and global K-12 schools teach a wastefully slow and simplified math and physics education, wasting many years of the lives of smart students,” said Miles Frasier, a local Berkeley mathematician. “Most schools cater to the average student with minimum standards, and parents have to resort to ad hoc methods to teach smart, motivated students.  However, the thinkers, scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs of the next few decades and centuries will need to deeply understand the theory and also have the facility with doing research, building tools, and running many experiments.  This program will accelerate that learning for curious, smart, and motivated kids, empowering them with a deep understanding of reality that is as true today as it was a billion years ago and will be in a billion years.”

The philosophy of the program is to teach kids how to probe nature and learn about science through math, explanations, observations, and experiments:

“[A]ll progress, both theoretical and practical, has resulted from a single human activity: the quest for … good explanations.  Scientific theories are explanations: assertions about what is out there and how it behaves… They are guesses – bold conjectures. Human minds create them by rearranging, combining, altering and adding to existing ideas with the intention of improving upon them. We do not begin with ‘white paper’ at birth, but with inborn expectations and intentions and an innate ability to improve upon them using thought and experience…although scientific theories are not derived from experience, they can be tested by experience – by observation or experiment.” Deutsch, David. The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World. Penguin Publishing Group, 2011.

A Personalized Curriculum on a Netbook or Laptop

The curriculum will build from the simple foundations of basic reading, counting, number operations, and geometric play to cover the foundations of a K-12 math and physics education in 6 years and a 2020 undergraduate math, physics, and computer science education in 6 years.  The students will receive structure and stimulating challenges, while also being encouraged to explore and go where their interests lie, from exploring pure math to applying it in scientific, engineering, and artistic domains.  Hence while 100 students may take the bones of a curriculum, their actual paths through the material will reflect their own curiosity and motivation, with the end result being research, creation, and experimentation, and not just taking tests (which are minor and will be de-emphasized).  This specifically means:

  • Any child, aged 4 or older, who can read and count, may start the program and proceed at their own pace
  • The curriculum can be seen as a graph of major, intermediate, and minor nodes, with the major nodes acting as the “bones” – a student’s trajectory through the nodes can follow their interests, as long as they complete the bones at some point 
  • Testing will be required, though de-emphasized, only to show simple mastery 
  • A strong emphasis will be on teaching students how to take notes and create their own knowledge graphs, and also on asking questions and pushing on concepts
  • The highest form of mastery will be through research, the creation of papers/machines/technology/programs/art, and formulating hypotheses to test in rigorous ways 
  • Students will be encouraged to write papers, file a patent, create a small business or startup, and experiment with making art or products with what they learn
  • The computer science portions of the program will teach computational thinking and practical programming skills so students can apply these tools to solving math and physics problems, building games and tools, and pursuing research
  • Students will use free or cheap materials like YouTube lectures, Khan Academy, MIT OpenCourseWare, Beast Academy, Isaac Comp Sci, and so on, to work individually with their parents and tutors, or in small groups, to learn
  • Students will have the opportunity to take AP exams and college level exams, and prepare for elite competitions like the Math, Physics, Computing, or Informatics Olympiads, or to completely skip them
  • The ultimate goal is to instill a sense of joy, curiosity, confidence, intrinsic motivation, and creativity in students, and the ability to customize their own program of education and follow it
  • Creativity, discipline, exploration, and research are some values guiding the program

The math portions of the program will begin between ages 3 to 5 with basic reading, counting, number operations, and geometric play (blocks and shapes).  It will end by age 18 with much of an undergraduate math curriculum in pure and applied math, cryptography, numerical methods, data science, and statistics and probability.

The physics portions of the program will begin at ages 3 to 5 with basic object manipulation, environment exploration, and geometric play.  It will end by age 18 with much of an undergraduate physics curriculum in Classical Physics (mechanics, light and heat, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, optics) and Modern Physics (Quantum Mechanics, Standard Model), with optional trajectories through Astronomy, Biophysics, Electrical Engineering, and Material Science.

The computer science portion of the program will begin at ages 3 to 5 with legos and Scratch, and then proceed through BASIC, Python, C++, and Java.  The theory of computation will be taught through building hardware and software (using Linux and Raspberry Pis) via courses like ​​Computation Structures, Intro to Algorithms, Fundamentals of Programming, Elements of Software Construction, Computer Systems Engineering, Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, Computability and Complexity Theory, Operating Systems, Design and Analysis of Complex Algorithms.

Sleek and Intuitive New Website

The curriculum will be available on a website that can be accessed anywhere in the world, and for students with limited internet, it will be placed on netbooks and pads, so students can access this education as long as they have electricity. The website will be available globally on major browsers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and IE).

To learn more about AMP or enroll a student, send an email to: arun@variancepod.com

Student and Parent FAQs [External]

1. Who is this program for?

This program is for kids who show an aptitude and interest in math, science, and computers and have a family to support them in nurturing this interest. They have high logical-mathematical and spatial intelligence, and a motivation to explore such manifolds and concepts.  It’s not meant for the average child or student, but rather the passionate and exceptional ones.  The ultimate goal is to accelerate the education and abilities of future generations of top mathematicians, scientists, computer scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs, beyond the low bar that currently exists in K-12 education.

2. How was the curriculum created?  Why math, physics, and CS?

We wanted to replicate the best education that top undergraduate programs (MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley) and specialized schools (Saint Petersburg Lyceum 239, Bronx High School of Science, IMSA, IASMH, Pasadena Math Academy, etc) have and spread that out over 12 years, as an acceleration of the existing K-16 program.  The other main difference is to encourage creativity, exploration, research, and experimentation on top of needed rote learning.

We see math, physics, and CS as foundational skills for the 21st and 22nd centuries, and they are often poorly taught in the US and many other countries.  Math is foundational for all physics and CS; physics is foundational for all the other sciences, engineering, and robotics; and CS, including general computation thinking and problem-solving, is crucial to building a world of AI, deep science, and hyper-automation.   We believe these subjects are as foundational as reading, writing, and the arts, and so should also be taught at an early age.

3. How can students access the program?

Our aim is for any student with a laptop and internet access to get the full program via a web browser.

4. Will students need parents, teachers, or tutors to help?

Yes.  While our goal is to automate the delivery of this curriculum as much as possible, students will still need the help of real-life adults to explain problems.  While we aim to put students in pods so they can teach each other, each pod will likely need one or more adults with expertise in math, physics, or computer science to act as a resource on top of the lectures and readings, especially to help with difficult concepts or to run experiments.

5. How much will the program cost?

The program is free.  Students must provide their own laptops and experiment materials, and pods may choose to hire their own tutors or make parents available.

6. Does the program meet state standards in California, Texas, Massachusetts, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Shanghai, and or Singapore?

The program will exceed the current 2020s highest standards of these programs, which fundamentally are set for the average student in these regions.  

7. How much effort will it take for students to complete this program?  Can you really start at a young age?

It really depends on the motivation of each student and the pod they are in – we expect multiple tracks as students complete the bones of the program and side paths as they explore optional material.  We believe that students can start this curriculum as soon as they can read fluently and play with geometric and lego blocks.  Some students may do just 90 minutes a day – others may spend hours each day and go deep.  It’s up to the individual child, their parent/tutor, and their pod.  The biggest variable is the level of attention/focus that parents put on the child as early as possible. If parents treat this as something they can just outsource, rather than take direct responsibility for it, the results will drastically differ. The only way to enforce that is to go all-in at a very early age with your kid.

8. Why was this program created?

AMP Education was inspired by a[n]b, Knuth’s up-arrow notation, a method of notation for very large integers, introduced by Donald Knuth in 1976.  It connotes the near-infinite returns we can get from providing a top-notch education to some of the world’s brightest and most motivated children, from a young age.

9.  Is this program open-sourced?  How will it evolve?

The program is open-sourced and will be maintained on a website and Git repository, with a small number of people holding root access and a larger number given contributor status.  It will evolve wherever the community wants it to go, like any open-source project.

10. What role do motivation and curiosity play in this program?

One of the core values of this program is to feed motivation and curiosity by giving children choice and freedom to follow their interests in m ath, physics, and computer science, and not to force material on them.  Some material is so important and foundational, as bones, that it must be learned.  However, we expect over time the majority of nodes available will be optional and based on interest. 

11.  Will students get to read books for fun?

Yes.  We provide general interest reading lists for each of the three areas, and grade them by difficulty, along with reading lists of special technical books and monographs for students who want to go deep.

12.  What role will social learning play – can students learn from each other?  What are pods?

Some students may wish to learn in a solitary environment, but we expect the vast majority of students will prefer to learn socially with a pod of other students who share similar interests.  We will do our best to match each student and their parents to small pods.

13. How is this personalized? How will AI tutors or other resources be used?

Ultimately each student and their parents will personalize their education to their own interests, needs, and curiosity.  Entire pods may choose to take unique paths through the different available nodes of material.  We are more interested in teaching kids how to organize their interests and pursue research directions with rigor and hard scientific skills than in imparting any specific curriculum (though some students may choose to go broad and cover a broad education, while others may focus on narrow areas like astronomy, pure math, or building virtual worlds and games).

AI will be used all across the AMP program, from designing personalize curricula and graphs, to helping teach material, to building projects, writing code, and modeling complex phenomena. We want AMP students to be AI-native and use multiple tools for multiple tasks, and get really good at understanding the constantly changing, jagged frontier of AI (where AI is really good in some areas, mediocre in some, and terrible in others, and humans need good judgment to understand that moving frontier).

14. Is this too strenuous for kids?  Will it make learning boring?

Not at all.  For younger children (ages 4 to 8), the focus is on play, discovery, learning basics in multiple modes (with symbols, images, real world objects, etc) and learning to have fun with the material.  For older children (ages 9 to 13), the focus then moves on to building good habits, accuracy and precision, learning technical skills and how to teach oneself, and simple modeling and applications.  For teens (ages 13 to 18), the focus is on research, writing papers, filing patents, making models and products, fostering creativity, and going deep into interests (branches and smaller nodes), and complex applications of the subject.  This path follows the research of Bloom et al. in their monograph “Developing Talent in Young People”, which covered research mathematicians and scientists.

15. What type of culture is this program trying to create?

Ultimately this program wants to instill the value that the human capacity to grow is unlimited and that one of the most meaningful forms of achievement is to push the boundaries of math, physics, and computer science (similar to how popular American culture values TV/movie celebrities, athletes, and musicians today).  This means visiting science museums, math Olympiads, math/ science/ engineering camps, nature preserves, astronomical observatories, spaceports, manufacturing facilities, research labs, and so on.  The ultimate validator of the program is to take kids from the slums and help them realize their native genius.  Or as Ben Franklin wrote, “Genius without education is like silver in the mine.” 

16. Don’t kids need other things than math, physics, and computer science?
Yes, absolutely, specialization is for insects and kids need wide exposure!  Current schools, parents, and local communities provide a range of activities and enrichment for kids, including reading literature, studying history, learning a musical instrument, playing team sports, doing art projects, exploring nature, playing games, traveling to different cultures and countries, volunteering for causes, working jobs, and much more.  Kids need broad balance and a range of activities.  This program, however, is for the subset of exceptional kids who want to go deep in math, physics, and computation.

Curriculum and Teacher FAQs [Internal to AMP Education]

1. How was this program created?  What is the market gap, and why does it exist?

This curriculum was created by taking the courses of the top undergraduate programs (MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley) and specialized schools (Saint Petersburg Lyceum 239, Moscow State School 57, Beijing No. 4 High School, Bronx High School of Science, etc), and working backward from those learning objectives and skillsets to the age of 3.  Ultimately we aim to create a second Kolmogorovian revolution in how math and physics are taught.

The market gap is that there is no comprehensive curriculum covering these 3 foundational subjects starting from a young age, that cumulatively continues till the end of high school.  Most schools cater to the average student with minimum standards, and parents have to resort to ad hoc methods to teach smart, motivated students.

2. Who specifically influenced how this program was created?

We did research on the education of some of the most creative physicists and mathematicians in the last 2 centuries (and beyond), to help inform the philosophy and curriculum of this program.  We specifically examined:

Einstein, Feynman, Bohr, Dirac, Maxwell, Hawking, Curie, Faraday, Maxwell, Fermi, Bardeen, Wheeler

Gauss, Euler, Newton, RA Fischer, Von Neumann, von Karman, Szilard, Wigner, Teller, Kolmogorov, Terry Tao, Hilbert, Reimann, Erdos, Turing, Reimann, Noether, Perelman, Conway, Grothendieck, Doudna, Yann LeCunn, Geoff Hinton, Blackwell, Yuri Milner, Henry Singleton, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Jennifer Doudna, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates.

Schools with specialized math/science programs:

3. Why does the curriculum consist of nodes and a self-directed graph, not a linear sequence?

The levels of knowledge in math, physics, and computer science are better represented by a graph and not a tree structure.  While it has been convenient and simple for schools in the past to teach a linear sequence, we believe the most motivated students will want to learn at their own pace, following their own interests.  Hence we are creating this curriculum as an undirected, cyclic graph for students to traverse.

4. What are the pedagogical principles behind the program?

We will utilize eight cognitive learning strategies: Automaticity and Computational Fluency; Distributed Practice; Mixed Review; Active Learning; Layering; Cognitive Noninterference; Deliberate Practice; Mastery Learning.  More information here.

5. How will AMP Education market and distribute this curriculum?

We will start by testing this in small pods in the Bay Area, and then grow organically by presenting it to parent groups in other major American cities, mainly focusing on groups for highly motivated or gifted and talented children, with an aptitude for math and science.  We expect the growth to be organic and word of mouth, though it will be open to anyone, anywhere in the world.

6.  What are the short, intermediate, and long-run goals of releasing this curriculum?

Over 5 years, we expect to enroll 3-5 pods with 20-30 students.  Over 15 years, 20-50 pods with 100-500 students.  And over 30 years, 200-500 pods, with 1000 to 3000 students.  Ultimately, we aim for this curriculum to be standard in 100 years.

6. What is the competition for this program?

Currently, different programs exist for portions of this program for each of the 3 subjects (e.g. Beast Academy for math in elementary school, or the Pasadena Math Academy for high school students).  The closest programs are Khan Academy or MIT OpenCourseWare, which cover a standard high school curriculum or intro MIT courses, but they don’t cover research, experiments, and self-directed learning (they are meant to supplement a traditional high school or college curriculum).  We plan to incorporate existing resources into our curriculum (we won’t duplicate effort) and create a loosely-directed graph for students to follow.