Frank Morgan

March 29, 2000

EXTRA EDITION of MATH CHAT

Beeneet Kothari of Half Hollow Hills High School West, Long Island, has been awarded the first $1000 National High School Calculus Student Award. In ninth grade he wrote a paper on calculus, in tenth grade he wrote a paper on Fourier series, and in eleventh grade he finished advanced placement calculus with a perfect 100 average. He has used calculus to model HIV and recommended new treatments. He is currently president of his high school Brainstormers Academic Quiz Bowl Team, National Honor Society, and Science Research Club, and Science Olympiad captain.

The award comes from ecalculus.org, based at the University of California at Davis and Williams College. Head judge Professor Frank Morgan of Williams College awarded the prize to Beeneet at a special assembly at his school today (March 29). Beeneet was nominated by mathematics teacher Alan Blayne.

Runners up, Andrew Aymeloglu (Emmaus High School, Pennsylvania), Devlyn Brown (Vero Beach High School, Florida), Mabel Feng (Colleyville Heritage High School, Texas), Desire Hakizimana (New Brunswick High School, New Jersey), and Po-Shen Loh (James Madison Memorial High School, Madison, Wisconsin), as well as Beeneet, receive Scientific Notebook donated by MacKichan Software.

Although the winner this year was a young man, about one third of the nominees were young women. Incidentally, the top calculus student at Williams College this year was a young woman.

Send answers, comments, and new questions by email to [email protected], to be eligible for Flatland and other book awards. Winning answers will appear in the next Math Chat. Math Chat appears on the first and third Thursdays of each month. Prof. Morgan’s homepage is at www.williams.edu/Mathematics/fmorgan.

THE MATH CHAT BOOK, including a $1000 Math Chat Book QUEST, questions and answers, and a list of past challenge winners, is now available from the MAA (800-331-1622).

Copyright 2000, Frank Morgan.