Love Math?

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Of course! Cookies is always free and open to all! Most of our students are high schoolers, but younger students who are ready are very welcome to join. If in doubt, contact us. (Some semester the program requires certain prerequisites, but not this term.)

You can register at the Fayetteville Public Library.

We are studying Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), which is a very common way of protecting information. What is an alliptic curve? Long story, but here are some pictures.

This topic is quite advanced and gave us the opportunity to cover many things, starting with very elementary topics and reaching far. So far we learned:

1. Modular arithmetics: this is simply addition/subtraction and multiplication/division, all done "mod N". This means that there is some integer N and after every operation we take the remainder mod N. For example, 5+4 mod 7 = 2. Looks strange? Perhaps it is! but it turns out to be very useful.

2. Elliptic curves: we learned what they are and how to add/subtract points on them. If you thought that modular arithmetic is weird, good luck with this one!

3. Finite fields: now we are getting into some advanced algebra! It turns out that sometimes modular arithmetics can be used for elliptic curves, specifically when N is a prime. This is so because of one of the most useful algorithms of all ---

4. Euclid's Algorithm! 

5. With these tools we are in business, and for the rest of the term we will perform various cryptographic tasks. In a few weeks, we will add an update. 

Moems (math olympiad for elementary and middle schools) is an activity for younger kids, starting at grade 4. It is also held at the Fayetteville Public library, and just like Cookies for Proof, it is free and open to all. 

Moems is now finished for the 24/25 school year, but will be back in the Fall! Visit the Fayetteville Public Library around August for more details.

We are happy to help with material! Please fill out the form in the For Future Instructors section.

Some of the sweets featured in our pictures are not technically cookies (but they are all very tasty!). 

The Arkansas Math Discovery Day was held on 4/19. Big, big thank-you for the many volunteers that helped make this event so successful! Join us again next year.