The beauty of numbers and the interacting patterns in mathematics has captivated Georgia Donoghue for years.
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And that passion is expected to develop exponentially after her selection to attend the National Mathematics Summer School (NMSS) in January.
The Armidale School Year 11 student will be joined by around only 70 other students nationally in the program, which fosters the discovery and development of mathematically gifted and talented secondary students from across Australia.
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She said she couldn't wait to apply for the school after hearing about it at last year's awards ceremony for the Australian Mathematics Competition, in which she finished in the top 0.3 percent of the nation and the second highest scoring female in the state.
"The concepts that will be explored at the NMSS, particularly Number Theory and Algorithims, are are much different from those learned in school, and the prospect of broadening my view of the mathematical world is just irresistible," she said.
"Number theory is a branch of mathematics that I find particularly interesting; it explores the properties of the natural numbers (integers) and the patterns that they form, looking largely at prime numbers and their use in cryptography and encryption."
Whilst the pandemic means the event will this year be held online rather than at the Australian National University which normally hosts the event, Georgia said she expects it will be just as stimulating.
"Although NMSS is virtual in 2021, this opens doors to many brilliant speakers and educators from around the world to share their knowledge with us, and it will also be easy to keep in touch with those that I meet at the camp," she said.
Georgia is one of the largest class of students to study Mathematics Extension 2 in face-to-face classes at TAS for many years.