When Edward Frenkel is told he won't be accepted to a Russian university because his father is Jewish, he decides to take the admissions exam anyway.

Edward Frenkel is a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, which he joined in 1997 after being on the faculty at Harvard University. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society, and the winner of the Hermann Weyl Prize in mathematical physics. Frenkel has authored 3 books and over 80 scholarly articles in academic journals, and he has lectured on his work around the world. His YouTube videos have garnered over 3 million views.

Frenkel's latest book "Love and Math" was a New York Times bestseller and has been named one of the Best Books of 2013 by both Amazon and iBooks. It is being translated into 14 languages. Frenkel has also co-produced, co-directed and played the lead in the film "Rites of Love and Math."

This story originally aired on September 19, 2014.