The first articles in a new collection are written by two mathematicians who have won the equivalent of Nobel prizes in math  

Photo credit: Frontiers

Frontiers for Young Minds has published a new article collection for kids on the mathematical discoveries of prize-winning scientists. The first two articles feature and explain the ground-breaking math of the 2023 Wolf Prize winner, Ingrid Daubechies – who developed mathematical tools for processing images and signals called ‘wavelets’– and 2005 Gödel Prize and 2022 Shaw Prize winner, Noga Alon – who is renowned for his work on combinatorics, a branch of mathematics dealing with combinations of objects and data.  

This is the beginning of a wider collection – Math That Changed The World – showcasing to kids the practical applications of math and the impact it has had on everyday life. From patterns in data and health scans, to creating animated movies and even within astronomy, the researchers show how their work has enabled major breakthroughs for humanity, and that mathematics is more applied than abstract formulas and calculations. And each article has been reviewed by kids aged 8-15 to ensure the concepts are understandable for young readers. 

The published articles are freely available on the Frontiers for Young Minds website: 

• Combinatorics: The Mathematics of Fair Thieves and Sophisticated Forgetters, by Noga Alon , Princeton University, USA  

• Wavelets: Mathematical Tools for Image Analysis, by Ingrid Daubechies, Duke University, USA 

New articles will be added to the collection early next year, including one by 2019 Turing Award winner, Patrick Hanrahan on the math behind movies, and another by 2021 Abel Prize winner, Avi Wigderson on computational complexity theory. To view more scientific articles for kids and teens, visit the Frontiers for Young Minds website.   

About the authors

Professor Noga Alon was awarded the 2005 Gödel Prize, jointly with Prof Yossi Matias and Prof Mario Szegedy, for the work laid the foundations of the analysis of data streams using limited memory. In 2022, Prof Alon was awarded the Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences, jointly with Ehud Hrushovski, for their remarkable contributions to discrete mathematics and model theory with interaction notably with algebraic geometry, topology and computer sciences. 

James B Duke Distinguished Professor of Mathematics and Electrical and Computer Engineering, Professor Ingrid Daubechies was awarded the 2023 Wolf Prize for work in wavelet theory and applied harmonic analysis. 

About Frontiers for Young Minds

Frontiers for Young Minds is an award-winning, non-profit, open-access, scientific journal for kids that publishes articles written by leading researchers and peer reviewed by children aged 8-15. The journal features over 1,250 articles with over 35 million views and downloads, produced by 3,800 authors, mentored by 800+ scientists, and reviewed by 7,400+ youngsters from 65 countries worldwide. Frontiers for Young Minds publishes in eight subject areas (Astronomy and Physics, Biodiversity, Chemistry and Materials, Earth Sciences, Engineering and Technology, Human Health, Mathematics and Economics, Neuroscience and Psychology), with articles available in English, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, and French.