HOM-SIGMAA is now hosting two Student Paper Contests: The Student Paper Contest in the History of Mathematics, and the Al-Khwarizmi Student Paper Contest. Details for both contests can be found below.
HOM-SIGMAA is pleased to announce its twenty-first annual Student Paper Contest in the History of Mathematics. The submission deadline is Friday, April 30, 2024. You can find the flyer here. Submissions and questions can be directed to Dr. Amy Shell-Gellasch (ashellge@emich.edu). This contest is open to all undergraduate students. (Students who have graduated less than a year ago but wrote their paper while still an undergraduate may also participate. Graduate and high school students may also submit for an honorable mention.) Submission Guidelines
- Topics can be drawn from any field of mathematics.
- Papers can address a single person or topic, or be an historical survey of a topic or school of thought.
- Submissions should be approximately 5000 words (approximately 12 double-spaced 12 pt. pages) in length with font that is easy to read.
- Submissions should be in a single PDF file, including a title page with title of paper, the author, school, and complete contact information.
- Papers should include a full citation list.
- Papers should not draw too heavily from web sources.
- Students submitting a paper need not be currently taking a history of mathematics course.
- All papers should be single-authored.
- Eligible papers are those written in the past year and while the author was an undergraduate.
HOM-SIGMAA is pleased to announce the first annual Al-Khwarizmi Student Paper Contest. The submission deadline is November 17, 2023. You can find the flyer here. Submissions and questions can be directed to Dr. AbdelNaser Al-Hasan (naser.alhasan@newberry.edu) or Dr. Noah Aydin (aydinn@kenyon.edu). This paper contest is open to all undergraduate students in any educational institution in USA. The prize is a one-year membership to the MAA and HOM SIGMAA, and a history of mathematics book, and winning papers will be submitted to the MAA Convergence for possible publication. The paper subject can be on any topic in mathematics or geometry during the period from the 8th to the 16th century (inclusive) including but not limited to:
- Contributions of a scholar from the Islamic World to mathematics during such period
- Any Islamic/Arabic mathematics topic from this period
- Contributions of multiple Islamic/Arabic scholars to a given subject/topic in mathematics in this period
- Connections of Islamic/Arabic Mathematics and the Arts
- Connections of Islamic/Arabic Mathematics and Architecture
- Influence of Islamic/Arabic Mathematics on other civilizations
We have our winners for the 2024 HOM SIGMAA Student Paper Contest. The papers will be published on Convergence here later this summer. The First Place winner is Mithra Karamchedu of Harvey Mudd College, with “A Mind, a Machine, and a Game in Between (about Claude Shannon).” The Second Place winner is Y. Shane Wang of University of Toronto, with “Theories on the Origins of the Sexagesimal System.” Honorable Mentions are also given to David Forson of University of Missouri-KC, with “Sangaku: The Mathematical Art of the Edo Period,” and David Freeman of Lee University, with “Deconstructing Descartes: An Analysis of the Mathematical Influences Descartes’ Philosophy.”
We have our winner for the 2023 HOM SIGMAA Student Paper Contest. The paper has been published on Convergence here. The First Place winner is Adin Tinsley of Stoney Brook University, with “Nicole Oresme and the Revival of Medieval Mathematics”.
We have our winners for the 2022 HOM SIGMAA Student Paper Contest. The papers have been published on Convergence.
- 1st place: Rye Ledford of the University of Missouri — Kansas City, “The Assumptive Attitudes of Western Scholars Regarding the Contributions of Mathematics from India: Assessing yukti-s from the Yuktibhāṣā of Jyeṣṭhadeva”
- 2nd place: Sarah Sanfranski of the University of Redlands, “Estimations of π: The Kerala School of Astronomy and Mathematics, The Gregory-Liebniz Series, and the Eurocentrism of Math History”
2021 Writing Contest Winner – Megan Ferguson- “The Suan shu shu and the Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art: A Comparison”
WINNER OF 2020 Writing Contest
The 2020 HOM SIGMAA Student Paper Contest in the History of Mathematics winner is
Jeff Powers of Grand Rapids Community College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Congratulations, Jeff! His paper “Did Archimedes Do Calculus?” is below.
OLDER WRITING CONTEST WINNERS
Copies of the papers for earlier contest winners can be found here.
2004 – Mark Walters. It Appears That Four Colors Suffice: A Historical Overview of the Four-Color Theorem
2004 – Heath Yates. An Emanji Temple Tablet
2005 – James Collingwood. Rigor in Analysis: From Newton to Cauchy
2005 – Newlyn Walkup. Eratosthenes and the Mystery of the Stades
2006 – Samantha Reynolds. Maria Gaetana Agnesi: Female Mathematician and Brilliant Expositor of the Eighteenth Century
2006 – Jennifer Wiegert. The Sagacity of Circles: A History of the Isoperimetric Problem
2007 – Rory Plante, The Libra Astonomica and its Mathematics
2007 – Douglas Smith, Lucas’s theorem: A Great Theorem
2008 – First Place – Mame Maloney. Pathological Functions in the 18th and 19th Centuries
2008 – Second Place – Woody Burchett. Thinking Inside the Box: Geometric Interpretations of Quadratic Problems in BM 13901
2008 – Cole McGee. Jean Le Rond d’Almbert: Biography of a Mathematician, Philosophe, and Man of Letters
2008 – Mame Maloney – Honorable Mention. Pathological Functions in the 18th and 19th Centuries
2009 – First Place – Nathan McLaughlin. The Mathematical Optics of Sir William Rowan Hamilton: Conical Refraction and Quaternions
2009 – Second Place – Tim Chalberg. Regression Analysis – A Powerful Tool and Riveting Drama
2009 – Honorable Mention – Amy Buchmann. A Brief History of Quaternions and the Theory of Holomorphic Functions of Quaternionic Variables
2010 – Jennifer L. Nielsen. The Heart is a Dust Board: Abu’l Wafa Al-Buzjani, Dissection, Construction, and the Dialog Between Art and Mathematics in Medieval Islamic Culture
2010 – Palmer Rampell. The Use of Similarity in Old Babylonian Mathematics
2010 – Stefanie Streck. The Fermat Problem
2011 – First Place – Paul Stahl. Kepler’s Development of Mathematical Astronomy
2011- Runner Up – Sarah Costrell. Mathematics and Mathematical Thought in the Quadrivium of Isidore of Seville
2011 – Runner Up – Rich Hill. Thomas Harriot’s Artis Analyticae Praxis and the Roots of Modern Algebra
2012 – Jesse Hamer. Indivisibles and the Cycloid in the Early 17th Century
2012 – Kevin L. Wininger. On the Foundations of X-Ray Computed Tomography in Medicine: A Fundamental Review of the `Radon transform’ and a Tribute to Johann Radon
2013 – Matthew S. Shives, Paradigms and Mathematics: A Creative Perspective
2014 – First Place – Anna Riffe, The Impossible Proof: An Analysis of Adrien-Marie Legendre’s Attempts to Prove Euclid’s Fifth Postulate
2014 – First Place – Jenna R. Miller, Casting Light on the Statistical Life of Florence Nightingale
2014 – Second Place – Mary Ruff, “Probability to 1750”
2014 – Second Place – Paul Ayers, Gabriel Cramer: Over 260 years of crushing the unknowns