The Avid Learner

	Caltech Harvey Mudd Math Competition
The Caltech Harvey Mudd Math Competition is a team competition for high school students organized by the Caltech and Harvey Mudd math clubs. The first annual CHMMC will be on Saturday, February 20 at Caltech. For more information visit Caltech's site on the CHMMC: Caltech Harvey Mudd Math Competition

2009 Physics Nobel Prize Winners Announced

On October 6, 2009, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to two individuals for their contributions in optical technologies. Charles K. Kao, and Willard S. Boyle's team of scientists were this year's winners.

Kao, nearly 40 years ago, theorized a form of fiber that could transmit light over 60 miles, far better than that time's light tranmission across a mere 65 feet. His theory led to the revolutionary field of fiber optics, which has shaped the way we comminucate across the world today.

Willard S. Boyle and his team of scientists used the photoelectric effect, as theorized by Albert Einstein, to build a sensor that transforms light into electic signals. This has led to the use of digital-imaging in all sorts of electronics from cellular phones, to surgical devices.

The two scientists will split the award of 10 million Swedish Kronors (roughly $1.4 million). It goes to show that a great idea, with the applied knowledge in math and science, can take you anywhere.

To learn more about these Nobel Laureates, please read the CNET news article by Lance Whitney: Tech Pioneers win 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics

2009 Chemistry Nobel Prize Goes to Three Scientists

Israeli Ada Yonath and Americans Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas Steitz shared the $1.4 million prize for showing how the ribosome operates on an atomic level.

Ada Yonath began mapping out the ribosome using X-Ray crystallography in the late 1970's. The feat of mapping out the hundreds of thousands of atoms that composed the ribosome was considered way, way, way beyond technology at that point. Yale University's Steitz and Ramakrishnan of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Britain jumped on the project in a race to be the first to complete the map.

In 2000, the map was finished. Knowledge of the ribosome's structure has made medical breakthroughs in developments of powerful new antibiotics.

For more info on this article, please visit: 2009 Chem Nobel Prize

2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine

Doctors Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider, and Jack Szostak won the Nobel prize for medicine for their work on the existence and nature of telomerase, an enzyme that helps prevent the fraying of chromosomes and is core to new work on aging and cancer.

Sparked by curiosity in the early 1970's, their work may lend itself to finding a cure for cancer sooner than anticipated.

For more information on the Nobel laureates, please read the ABC News article by Peter Henderson: Nobel Prize-Winning Medical Research Long and Costly

Whitney Quits Hedge Fund Job to Create Math Museum

New Yorker, Glen Whitney, got into math as a teenager at a math summer camp. His excitement about the subject intensified as years wore on, leading him to earning a PhD. While working as an algorithm manager at the giant quantitative hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, Whitney had an epiphany that the world needs a math museum. "The idea behind the museum, which doesn't yet have a home, is that math is ubiquitous, supercool, underappreciated, poorly taught, and even more poorly learned."

Many people are turned off by math, but Whitney wants to show that it can be fresh, and exciting, as it has many real world applications ranging from baseball, to traffic progression. He wants people to see the more interesting side of mathematics because, "Any time people get excited about something, it's much easier to learn about it." Whitney told one reporter.

If you are interested in reading more about this quirky scientist's dream, you can read Nick Paumgarten's article in The New Yorker: Math-hatten or Oren Yaniv's article for the NY Daily News: New Yorker Glen Whitney quits Hedge Fund job to open Math Museum.

Mathematicians Solve 'Trillion Triangle' Problem

The congruent number problem is one that has ailed mathematicians for thousands of years. Different scientists, including Fibonnaci and Fermat, to name a few famous ones, have taken a stab at this problem. A congruent number is a positive integer that is the area of a right triangle with three rational number sides. This problem is much more difficult than it sounds, and it hasn't been until recently that major breakthroughs in solving this problem have been made.

With the introduction of computer technology, many more congruent numbers were discovered, but not all could be found because the numbers being dealt with became so large, that if you were to write it out by hand, it would stretch to the moon and back. The biggest challenge ,when dealing with this problem, was finding adequate space to handle such massive numbers.

Bill Hart's team, of Warwick University in England, and Mark Watkins' team, of the university of Sydney in Australia, each designed algorithms to find more of these congruent numbers. Together, their calculations found 3,148,379,694 of these more mysterious congruent numbers up to a trillion.

The quest to find quadrillion numbers up to a quadrillion is now underway. For more information on this topic, please read the Science Daliy's article: Mathematicians Solve the "Trillion Triangle" Problem

Students Win $8000 in Army's National Science, Math, and Technology Competition

eCYBERMISSION is a free, web-based, science, math and technology competition funded by the Army for students grades 6-9. The competition entails team work to solve a problem in their own community using the scientific method. The students participating applied their knowledge of science, math and technology in ways that provided a clear benefit to their communities.

Winning teams from last year's competition used their knowledge of math and science to:

Save communities from harmful flood waters
Help students with disabilities to play sports
Increase healthy air quality in the community
Protect kids on Halloween

Registration for this year's competition runs from August 1 - December 18.

For more information, please visit the following site: Army's National Science, Math, and Technology Competition.

	Plan Your Summer, Check Out this FREE 3-Week Science Camp
The University of La Verne hosts a free 3-week summer camp geared toward science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Students are encouraged to apply. It is an excellent opportunity to interact with other students from different backgrounds for a common purpose. For more information on the program, please check out their site: STEM Summer Camp.

I hope you enjoyed the information provided in this newsletter. Thank you for supporting gifted education in Southern California. If you have comments to improve our newsletters or would like to share articles, resources and ideas with our community, please email me at Dr.Li@AvidAcademy.com.

Sincerely,

James Li, Ph.D.

Executive Director
Avid Academy for Gifted Youth