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2012-‐13 SIEMENS AWARDS FOR ADVANCED PLACEMENT
National Winner
ASHVIN SWAMINATHAN Total AP Courses Taken to Date (all disciplines including STEM): 18 Favorite AP Class: AP Physics C (Mechanics and Electricity & Magnetism) Advice to other AP students: “Challenge yourself by taking as many AP courses as you can.” Ashvin Swaminathan caught the science bug early as a toddler running around the corridors of Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, where his father was a scientist. “One Nobel Prize-‐winning display that impacted me immensely was the ‘invention of the transistor.’ I
have always marveled at how far the transistor has penetrated our lives. This fundamental, all-‐pervasive invention was the primary motivation for my interest in mathematics and physics.” Ashvin resides in Cupertino and attends The Harker School in San Jose. This high school senior is captain of his school Science Bowl team and plays the violin in the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra. A semifinalist in the Physics, Chemistry, and Biology Olympiads, he tutors pre-‐calculus and calculus at De Anza Community College and volunteers with RAFT (Resource Area for Teachers). Ever since taking AP Calculus BC in the eighth grade, Ashvin has been fascinated by notions of continuity and limits. “I enjoy abstractions, generalizations, and preciseness, and I derive immense pleasure in finding order in chaos. To me, mathematics is the most suited tool for such a vocational endeavor.” In 2012, he parlayed his interest into a research project for the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology entitled, Surreal Analysis: An Analogue of Real Analysis for Surreal Numbers, for which he was honored as a Regional Finalist. In his research, Ashvin developed an analogue of real analysis for surreal numbers, which could potentially help find solutions to currently unsolvable differential equations that arise in science and engineering. Ashvin has been accepted to Harvard College and plans to study mathematics, physics, music, Greek and Latin. He aspires to become a university professor and researcher in mathematics and physics.