62nd Annual STS (2002-2003)
Finalists
Ethan James Street

MICHIGAN
Ethan James Street, 17, of Livonia, investigated Pell's equation for polynomials over a field and periodicity for continued fractions in Laurent fields for his Intel Science Talent Search project in mathematics. Ethan's number theory project concerns Pell's equation, U2-fV2=1, where f, U and V are polynomials (instead of the classical case of integers). He found an analog of the integer case by showing that solutions for U and V again depend on the periodic behavior of the square root of f. Ethan's hobbies are drawing and exploring mathematics with innovative computer programming, resulting in some surprises. For example, once when attempting to write a pixel-by-pixel algorithm for drawing a circle, he accidentally created a program that generated a drawing for a figure known as the Mandelbrot Set. He then changed the parameters to create many diverse and beautiful images called fractals. At Winston Churchill High School, Ethan is active in student government and tutors fellow students. The son of Jeffrey and Lynn Street, Ethan plans to study math and physics at the University of Michigan in preparation for a career as a technology developer.