Re: [math-fun] Algebra I (RiP)

At 04:45 AM 8/23/2007, Bill Gosper wrote:

I said

...

PPS, my former student aced his tests but skipped his homework, and is now repeating Algebra I. As soon as I can photocopy a few pages, I'll share some of the stupendous howlers I found on a quick perusal of his new text. Amazingly, it's *not* Prentice-Hall ...

Perhaps this story will make you feel better (this jolly good Fellow was home-schooled): ---- Local teen works to advance encryption technology — By Johnny Jackson jjackson@henryherald.com Billy Dorminy runs about two miles each day on his family’s 23-acre property in McDonough. It is his opportunity, he says, to clear his mind and get rid of his frustrations. Occasionally, he sings a country tune or two as well. “I sing really badly,” he said. “But I have fun.” A driven 16 year old, Dorminy is one year and $40,000 into collecting scholarships for college, which is still two years away. He recently received a $10,000 scholarship through the Davidson Fellows Scholarship Program, a nonprofit based in Reno, Nev. Dorminy earned the scholarship for his research and presentation on “Improper Fractional Base Encryption,” a science project which incorporates concepts of improper fractional bases into a new encryption software. Dorminy created a new, more secure method of encryption using reduced redundancy representations of improper fractional bases, which effectively takes up less computer memory and uses both confusion and diffusion to hide messages. “I was thinking about these (fractional) bases,” he said. “I thought they’d probably be interesting, and there’s probably something that hasn’t been discovered yet.” As such, his is the first secure method of encryption using improper fractional bases that allows a second encrypted message to be undetectable within the body of a main message, which itself opens a new era for encryption exploration. “I think Billy’s project certainly has the possibilities of helping (a lot of people),” said Tacie Moessner, Davidson Fellows program manager. “And he and all the fellows, their projects will really benefit society and move us forward in their various fields ... These students are going to be the ones who are going to change the world.” Dorminy says he would like to see change toward a freer world, with less government intrusion. “I’d like way less government. I believe a lot in freedom and having government stay out of our daily lives,” said Dorminy, who has come to value his own autonomy over the years. As a homeschooled student, he says he is allowed to break away from the mold and pursue more intensely those things that interest him. “It means I can rush through things I’m not interested in and get to my programming,” said Dorminy, who also studies advanced mathematics through the Art of Problem Solving online school. He says he hopes to continue with his mathematics and computer science studies in the Ivy League. “Basically, I want to get a degree from college in computer science,” he said. “I’d like to be a computer scientist.” Though a math whiz, he says his love is computers — building them and operating them. “I put one together, before I took one apart,” said Dorminy. He owns three himself and built one for his parents. “It’s very nice; I have in-house I.T.,” said his mother, Ann Dorminy. “He’s never taken an IQ test. We’ve always known he was smart, and we don’t need anything to quantify that.” Dorminy has received numerous scholarships, honors, and awards this year alone, including the Scientific Depth and Rigor scholarship from Alcatel-Lucent, the first place prize from the Association for Computing Machinery, and a perfect score on the 2007 American Mathematics Competition 10. He has also been a finalist in the Reader’s Digest Word Power Challenge. — On the net: Davidson Fellows: www.davidsonfellows.org Copyright © 1999-2006 cnhi, inc.