Pythagoras, Einstein and cryptology were just a few of the topics addressed at this year’s Fall Student Mathematics Symposium at West Virginia University .
The Oct. 28 event held on the WVU campus was co-sponsored by the WVU Department of Mathematics in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences and the West Virginia Council of Teachers of Mathematics. The symposium, which has been presented annually since 1990, gives high school students a chance to learn about novel areas of mathematics from interactive presentations by college faculty.
Fifty-one students attended, including home-schooled students and students from Keyser, Preston , Morgantown , Bridgeport , Buckhannon-Upshur, Wheeling Park , Wirt County , Riverside and University high schools. Deloris Lipps ( Wirt County ), Penny Glass (Keyser), Brenda Flanigan and Grant Spencer ( Bridgeport ), and Patty Christy ( Riverside ) accompanied their students. WVU faculty and graduate students joined the participants for the talks and at a lunch reception in the Mountainlair.
This year the symposium included three formal presentations:
How RSA Encryption Works,by Michael Mays, professor of mathematics
Linking Pythagoras and Einstein,by Melanie Butler, assistant professor of mathematics
Solving Problems Using Mathematical Induction,by Jerzy Wojciechowski, associate professor of mathematics
All of the presenters engaged the students in discovering parts of their final results, withhomeworksuggesting problems and projects for further study and research.
Students who participated were:
Masih Ahmed
Nadia Ahmed
Elizabeth Banta
Jordan BeckettTyler Burton
Emily Calendrelli
Dylan Callery
Kenneth Case
Alan Chen
Brendan Cline
Nicholas Dunbar
Mark Dyer
Michael Ehrhart
Rebecca Flynn
Tom Freeland
Daych Fung
Kristen Graeber Andy Hall
Ryan Hanlon
Yonina Hoffman
Nichole Howell
Jessie Jones
Jamie Karraker
Matt Kaufmann
Jessica Kelley
Colin Kemp
Tawfiq Khoury
Joshua Klinestiver
Mitch Kosowski
Eric Lopez
Jacob Lubman
Andrew McIntyre
Neal Meredith
Emily Moore Tori Murray
Tara Myers
Cara Parcell
Daniel Parks
Anna Riley
Amanda Shaffer
Michael Sink
Matt Stout
Nate Swearingen
Bobby Tappe
Ken Taubenslag
Marcus Thomas
Cameron Tucker
Tim Walker
Blake Williams
Tierra Williams
Bradlee Wolfe