Wooster Participates in MCM
Oana Stelea

     For more than fifteen years, COMAP (Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications) has been organizing the annual Mathematical Contest in Mathematics (MCM) for high school students and college undergraduates. This international contest, according to the contest director, Frank R. Giordano, "is designed to stimulate and improve problem-solving and writing skills in a team setting." Each school interested in participating in this competition designates a team of three students to choose and solve one of three modeling problems. The students need to be familiar with more than just mathematics, since these problems deal with physics, chemistry, and there was even a problem concerning MRI scanners.

     Wooster participated in the contest this year, with a team made up of Elliot Strimbu, Dan Bates, and myself. There were three problems to choose from: the first had to do with an asteroid impact on Earth and its effects, the second dealt with finding a new way of better estimating maximum room occupancy, and the third was a chemistry problem. We chose Problem A: "An asteroid 1 km in diameter will impact the Earth at the South Pole. Discuss how this collision will affect the population, vegetation, fauna, etc. Consider long and short term effects." The time allotted to work on this problem was from 12:01 a.m. on Friday, February 5, through 5:00 p.m. on Monday, February 8, 1999. Our research methods were limited to computers, libraries, and any other inanimate source.

     For our paper, we researched the effects of smaller asteroid impacts on Earth, and estimated the worst case scenario of the impact of an asteroid of that diameter. We talked about the possible human losses, damages to major cities and farmland, and destruction of the Antarctic ecosystem. We considered the global and physical impacts (shockwaves, tsunamis, the melting of the polar ice cap and the net losses due to the impact).

     After putting in more than 45 hours of work individually, our paper, over 30 pages in length, was ready and turned in to our advisor, Dr. Settergren, by the time cut-off. Although it required a lot of time and research, we are proud of our work and determination to solve this problem. It was a fun and interesting experience, and we are anxiously awaiting the judges’ decision, which should be arriving soon. Anybody interested in participating in the competition next year should contact Dr. Settergren.