Section I Human beings have the natural inclination to ponder the things that frame their day to day lives. After all, isn’t it only natural to question the world around us? Some of the greatest inventions have arisen out of an individual’s sheer curiosity to explore something that fascinated them. Others have arisen after an attempt to simplify a task or improve everyday life. We can trace this idea back to a man who went by the name of Benjamin Franklin.

All throughout my life, I have felt very strongly for those who suffer from Cerebral Palsy (A neural disorder that is marked by physical [such as spastic tendencies] and cognitive difficulties). That is why I volunteered at the Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy in Kolkata, India during the summer of 2005. During my interactions and studies with these children, I saw that they really enjoy interacting with computers but did not have the proper means to do it, and I felt that Sharpgent software could aid them in their studies and careers tremendously.

I was no longer at a junction where I could ask my parents for the answers, nor indeed any being living or dead… Read More

ntel Science Talent Search, I wrote a paper entitled “Social Security Reform: A Model Combining Market and Non-market Solutions in Order to Achieve Political Consensus,” in the social sciences category. As the title states, I developed a mathematical model as well as incorporated concepts from both economics and political science. The first decision I made when I began my Intel research project was choosing what area of social science my project would entail.

I found David, in all his glory, on his bed, leaning on both elbows and knees, staring at the calendar on the wall next to his pillow. The calendar holds mystical powers for David. It lists all the activities he’s scheduled to do for the next day. David is my 15 year old brother. David has autism. While David stared at the calendar, I stared at him. That moment taught me what unconditional love means.

While reading this article, I noticed a number of faults in the setup of the experiment, which indicated the possibility that hypnopaedia was not impossible. The paper of the research, done by Emmons and Simon, never specified the nouns used in the study, so their results couldn’t be duplicated. The words in the study were learned by listening, but volunteers were tested in a written format. Read More

I first started learning the theory behind quantum chemistry during my sophomore year, when a friend first introduced me to Dr. Tao and his lab at the California State University of Fullerton (CSUF). In the summer of 2006, I spent over 40 hours per week in the lab, running calculations and researching more on reactions involving the hydroxyl and chlorine radicals in the atmosphere. Read More

Hard drives have much smaller sectors than flash memory, which does give them a slight advantage in performance. While the data on a hard drive can be changed many times without causing physical wear on the drive, the data on a flash memory device can only be changed a certain amount of times (often over 500,000 times per page, but it still adds up) before the reliability of the drive starts to corrode.

Section 1 For as long as I can remember, I have always had an immense love for animals. When I was little, around 6 or 7 years old, all I wanted was a puppy. Every moment of every day, that’s all I would talk about, constantly asking my parents to please buy me a puppy. Finally after either seeing my side or not being able to stand my nagging, my parents gave in and said that I could get a puppy.

I eventually picked the topic of automatic summarization of documents, which involves creating a shortened version of a document by analyzing the most important topics, or themes, in the document. The more I read about the field, the more interesting and feasible it seemed. Read More

One of the most exciting days of work occurred when I discovered that I could apply programming skills I acquired in my linear algebra class to my project. I needed a program that could graph in three dimensions, was easily manipulated, and used a color gradient to show height differences. MatLab, a matrix-based programming environment, fit that description perfectly. Read More

Today’s quantum computers are in a stage of infancy; it was considered a tremendous achievement when an experimental quantum computer multiplied three times five a few years ago. Yet, improvements are being made at a steady clip, and we might see a functioning quantum computer within a decade or two. Read More

Many times I wondered why I had not been taught grammar earlier, like my friends who attended private schools. Why was it that my brother and my friends in the city spent so much time on direct grammar instruction, while my school and so many other public institutions considered it a non-priority? For that matter, why did our superintendent insist on calling primary schools, “elementary schools” rather than “grammar schools”? There was a distinct philosophical reason at work.

Being that I am a twin, I sought after genetic studies to quench my rooted fascination with the potential biological linkage between family members, and furthermore, siblings. People would constantly question an existence of some bizarre twin connection; if your brother has to sneeze, will you have to as well? No-but could that be possible? If he develops a rare disorder, will I become susceptible as the next victim? As I explored the complexity of human psychology in association with genetic variability, I was amazed at the myriad of possibilities, both inheritable and environmentally stimulating, that may cause the onset of Schizophrenia.

Though I had a huge fear of bees, as many other people do, I was fascinated by the complex cognitive tasks these insects could perform despite their miniscule brains. I read numerous articles about how bumblebees were able to communicate with each other using various signals, such as by secreting pheromones to indicate when they have been successful when searching for food. It became clear to me that I wanted to study how bumblebees interact with each other and how their behavior affects their success during foraging.

Outside the realm of sports, it was shown that participation in clubs increased social participation and therefore social self-esteem (Lindsay 1984). In a more recent study, Mahoney & Cairns (1997) found that participation in clubs increased school engagement, meaning that students were more comfortable at school and more likely to participate in school. Essentially such students felt better about themselves at school. Read More

Personal Section “It does appear that on many, many different human attributes - height, weight, propensity for criminality, overall IQ, mathematical ability, scientific ability - there is relatively clear evidence that whatever the difference in means - which can be debated- there is a difference in standard deviation, and variability of a male and female population”. As soon as then-Harvard president Lawrence H. Summers made this statement on January 14th, 2005 as part of a speech during the NBER Conference on Diversifying the Science and Engineering Workforce, a storm of controversy arose over his “sexist” pronouncement.

The next hurdle was to figure out what information theory was really about. Since it is traditionally taught as an undergraduate or graduate level course, I dedicated the several weeks I had before RSI started to learning everything I could about information theory. This was already far too little time to digest an entire field, but you would be surprised at how much you can cover when you are focused on a single subject.