Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Examples Of Solving The Wave Equation In The Hyperbolic Plane, Cooper Ramsey

Senior Honors Theses

The complex numbers have proven themselves immensely useful in physics, mathematics, and engineering. One useful tool of the complex numbers is the method of conformal mapping which is used to solve various problems in physics and engineering that involved Laplace’s equation. Following the work done by Dr. James Cook, the complex numbers are replaced with associative real algebras. This paper focuses on another algebra, the hyperbolic numbers. A solution method like conformal mapping is developed with solutions to the one-dimensional wave equation. Applications of this solution method revolve around engineering and physics problems involving the propagation of waves. To conclude, …

Quantum Attacks On Modern Cryptography And Post-Quantum Cryptosystems, Zachary Marron

Senior Honors Theses

Cryptography is a critical technology in the modern computing industry, but the security of many cryptosystems relies on the difficulty of mathematical problems such as integer factorization and discrete logarithms. Large quantum computers can solve these problems efficiently, enabling the effective cryptanalysis of many common cryptosystems using such algorithms as Shor’s and Grover’s. If data integrity and security are to be preserved in the future, the algorithms that are vulnerable to quantum cryptanalytic techniques must be phased out in favor of quantum-proof cryptosystems. While quantum computer technology is still developing and is not yet capable of breaking commercial encryption, these …

The Impact Of Khan Academy Math Remediation On Ninth Grade Student Achievement, Sandra Kelly

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to determine if using Khan Academy as math remediation for fifteen minutes per day during a ninth grade Math I class would significantly affect student math achievement as measured by the North Carolina READY Math I End-of-Course Assessment. This quantitative study conducted at two rural high schools in West Virginia used remediation theory to make a comparison against a control population with the independent variable being grade level instruction only or grade level instruction plus math remediation using Khan Academy. The participants in the study included 131 ninth grade high school students taking …

An Old Tool With Enduring Value: Using Excel To Prepare Data For Analysis, Gregory A. Smith

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Microsoft Excel was first released on the Windows platform 30 years ago and has since become widely used. Although new tools for manipulating, analyzing, and visualizing data are constantly emerging, Excel remains a potent tool—and not just because of newer features. Simple functions such as TRIM, MID, SUBSTITUTE, FIND, ROUNDDOWN, and VLOOKUP can be used to manipulate data sets in powerful ways.

This workshop applies selected functions to realistic library data sets. Demonstrations include:

• deriving time-series categories from date and time stamps
• pre-coding survey comments based on keywords
• dealing with messy data points such as …