Mathematical and Scientific Explorations

  1. Astrocytes Expressing ALS-Linked Mutated SOD1 Release Factors Selectively Toxic to Motor Neurons: The following submission is Devon J. (’16)’s work on ALS for science research.  
  2. Big Bang: For his final project for the Life's Big Questions symposium course, Will M. ('15) created a computer simulation of the Big Bang, which offers a possibly answer to the "big question" of how the universe was created.
  3. Dictyostelium discoideum:  This submission by Raphael S. ('14) is a paper he wrote about the independent research he has been doing for the Science Research course offered at Packer. Raph has been researching how amoeba called Dictyostelium discoideum adhere to a flask as a model for cancer cell adhesion. He also included a copy of the poster he made based of his research that he used to compete in the New York City Science and Engineering Fair (NYCSEF). 
  4. The Future of Solar Cell Technology: This submission by Giancarlo S. ('16) is a summary and explanation of the solar cells he has been studying called Intermediate Band Solar Cells (IBSC). Being that he is in 10th grade, he has not yet worked with a mentor, nor conducted any research of his own, so this article is mainly based on bibliographic research he has done. 
  5. Guessing Through the SAT: This article by Harmanpreet S. (’15) is an exploration of the SAT and the chances of the possible outcomes of randomly guessing every question on the SAT.
  6. Hole Digging Using Geometry: Three Lower School students, Sam, Sam, and Sophie, worked with teacher Christopher Natalie to solve a problem concerning the the volume of a cylinder, without ever having heard of pi or knowing the equation for the volume of a cylinder!  
  7. Make Your Own KenKen: This piece by Maddy M. (’15) was done for Mr. Shah’s precalculus class. In this submission, Maddy describes how to create a KenKen Puzzle. 
  8. Measuring Boltzmann's Constant: As a part of her Independent Science Research Course, Arielle C. ('14) worked at the Center of Soft Matter Physics department at NYU and was able to participate in an experiment using holographic video microscopy to calculate Boltzmann’s constant. Arielle and her fellow team-mates wrote an article summing up their findings, which was published in the American Journal of Physics in October of 2013. 
  9. Sum of All Natural Numbers: The following is a proof reproduced by Teniya H. ('15) in response to a New York Times article. The proof supplies the sum of all natural numbers. The article can be found here.
  10. Summer at Sinai: The following submission by Alex K. (’16) is a paragraph summary of the work she will be doing this summer for Science Research at Mt. Sinai.  
  11. What If?: The following submission was written by Jack F. (’15) for his precalculus class; he investigates an interesting question that combines math with his love of baseball.