Seven exceptionally talented Iranian math students lost their lives in a bus crash on March 17, 1998. One of them was enrolled at Tehran University, while the others were studying at Sharif University of Technology. They had all won awards in national and international Olympiads and were returning from the 22nd Mathematics Competition for Students at Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, in southwestern Iran.

The bus that crashed into a ravine 20 years ago was carrying other passengers who survived. One of them was Maryam Mirzakhani, the Iranian-American winner of the 2014 Fields Medal (equivalent to the Nobel Prize in mathematics). Mirzakhani, who emigrated to the United States to continue her education at Harvard University a few years after the crash, died from cancer on July 14.

Reactions to the news of Mirzakhani’s passing on Persian-language social media networks brought back memories of the 1998 tragedy, which claimed the lives of her fellow mathematicians. There was also debate about the exceptionally talented Iranian students who emigrate from Iran, the possibilities and limitations that exist in Iran’s education system, as well as the role this system plays in cultivating talents.

Iranian universities were shut down for nearly three years in the aftermath of the 1979 overthrow of the shah and the subsequent “cultural revolution” (1980-83). The endeavor, which aimed to purge Iranian universities from “Westernized” students and professors, had many consequences. One of them was the exodus of a large number of university elites and experts from Iran.