The Math Years: Danica McKellar. tv series, The Wonder Years. However, since then McKellar has made huge strides as an

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Tessa Mitchell Math 101 Professor Petersen 5 April 2016 The Math Years: Danica McKellar The name Danica McKellar may only be familiar to those who were fans of the once hit tv series, The Wonder

1 Tessa Mitchell Math 101 Professor Petersen 5 April 2016 The Math Years: Danica McKellar The name Danica McKellar may only be familiar to those who were fans of the once hit tv series, The Wonder Years. However, since then McKellar has made huge strides as an internationally known Mathematician and educational advocate. She is a 2008 graduate from UCLA with a degree in Mathematics with the highest honors you can get (summa cum laude). This was Danica when she was Winnie Cooper, and Danica now as a Mathematician: McKellar has written math books and ended up being a New York Times Bestseller for all her published pieces. Her main target is young girls 9-14 because she wants to be a positive role model regarding getting an education, and not being intimidated by math like most are. Her first book, Math Doesn't Suck was formatted in the way of laying out math lessons in a teen magazine form. This was very appealing to young audiences and is on Amazon's 100 Top Selling Books for Her subsequent books were Kiss My Math (pre-algebra), Hot X: Algebra Exposed, and Girls Get Curves: Geometry Takes Shape. With such progressive titles and content formatting, anyone can see why she has been so successful in the Math book world. When asked in an interview how she got so creative with her books she responded, A lot of them I came up when I

2 was in school to help myself remember things. Some of them were developed as I wrote the book. For example, I'd ask myself "How can I relate prime numbers to the kinds of things I was doing in middle school?" Then I thought, aha, of course, there's patterns in a friendship bracelet! As soon as I got that idea, I wrote that part of the chapter. McKellar also says she continuously gets s from students, teachers, and parents raving about how beneficial her book has been. She states, Getting s from the readers - especially from girls who are feeling confident in math for the first time - is my favorite part of being an author. I know I'm making a difference and I'm so grateful to be having this experience! Below is a lineup of her trendy, teen centered books: McKellar's biggest accomplishment however, occurred while still a student at UCLA. During her time there, she co-authored (with her professor and a classmate) what would become proof of her own theorem in the area of mathematical physics. According to which McKellar elaborates, We proved a characterization theorem for a mathematical model of magnetic material, whereby a probability space is considered on a 2-D discrete lattice. The full title of her paper is Percolation and Gibbs States Multiplicity for Ferromagnetic Ashkin-Teller Models on Z2, but it became more commonly known as the Chayes-McKellar-Winn theorem. The theorem basically shows that for a very simplified model of magnetism, you can have multiple states of thermal equilibrium if you have percolation at that temperature. Their work was then was

3 published in the prestigious Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General. Below is the model of what was being tested upon: Her theorem explains, in a still very confusing way to us non-mathematicians, what it is proving, The phase diagram of the Ashkin Teller model is depicted in figure 1 above; this is the upper right-hand quadrant of Baxter s diagram [B], slightly tilted. In the notation of Baxter s book, the change of variables (for the uniform case) is as follows: 3 = k, 0 = k K, and 1 = 2 =0. The present work focuses on the region 0 < k < K/2, where the Ashkin Teller model interpolates between the 4-state Potts and Z4 models. (For more on Zn models and their relation to Ashkin Teller models, see [Ca].) If 0 < k < K/2, then there is a unique ordering transition [P]. Here we prove that the phase boundary of this unique ferromagnetic transition coincides precisely with the critical percolation boundary for the Ashkin-Teller spin sample. Her contributions to the Math world have certainly not gone unseen. She has won various

4 awards for her efforts. In January 2014, she received the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics Communications Award. It not only credited her books, her blog, and public appearances but, for encouraging young people-specifically girls to get interested in Mathematics. Also back in 2007, she was named Person of the Week on World News with Charles Gibson. Though not Math related, recently in 2014 she was a featured contestant on the tv show Dancing With The Stars. She finished in 6 th place, so I guess her dancing was too hard of an equation to tackle. Regardless, Danica McKellar continues to stand out as a positive female figure in the scary world of Math, a factor I think we all can appreciate.

5 Bibliography

CA: Hi, my name is Camille, and I will be interviewing you today. Would you please introduce yourself?

CA: Hi, my name is Camille, and I will be interviewing you today. Would you please introduce yourself? Interviewee: Ying Li Interviewer: Camille Alvarado Date of Interview: April 17, 2007 Location: Worcester, Massachusetts Transcriber: Randylin Bourassa, The Salter School Interpreters: Nicole Heart and