Not to diminish his work in any way, but markov chains are (were?) part of the senior finite math curriculum in Ontario.

E.g. We used them to examine weather prediction models in gr. 12

Wow. The most wonkish think I remember from high school is learning about the Balmer series (atom spectral emissions)

I didn't. His accomplishments sound pretty awesome! My reply above was directed more at the article and it's lack of links to the guy's work. After watching the interview I just wanted to try some searches but there was no link.

I wrote an IRC bot with them when I was 18, and I'm not particularly smart. Also, the bot wasn't particularly smart.