Math majors Chris Shill '14 and Erin Strosnider '14 presented their research at the spring conference of the Center for Undergraduate Research in Mathematics held at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah on March 14-15, 2014.
The research, mentored by assistant professor of mathematics Chad Awtrey, was joint work with mathematics major Nicole Miles ’15 and was supported in part by a grant from CURM.
The project was concerned with classifying arithmetic properties of degree 14 polynomials whose coefficients are p-adic numbers. In this context, Shill spoke on the basic theory surrounding the symmetry properties of the roots of these polynomials (an area known as Galois theory). Strosnider focused her talk on new algorithms the researchers designed and implemented to compute the corresponding symmetry properties.
The researchers have also disseminated their work by submitting two papers for publication, both of which have been accepted in professionally-refereed mathematics journals.