HomeProgramsCamp Euclid

Fractal

Kepler's Platonic model

Camp Euclid - A Mathematics Research Camp

Difficulty Level: U N K N O W N

Meet and Collaborate Online

Camp Euclid is a mind-tingling mathematics research program for youth. Participants will encounter solution-defying math problems (which have never been solved before). Mull over and grapple with tantalizingly difficult math problems within a circle of fellow researchers . . . .

Program Description

Your Group

You must be >= 13 years old and <= 19 years old, to participate. Before camp begins, you will be assigned to a small group of fellow participants - your research group. Friends may request to be assigned to the same group during the pre-registration process.

The Mentors

Camp mentors are undergraduates, or have undergraduate or graduate degrees in math; each mentor is an active researcher. Your group will be co-mentored by at least one postdoctoral-level mentor and two postdoctoral/graduate/undergraduate-level mentors.

Location

Camp participants meet and collaborate online.

You may participate from virtually anywhere!

Time Commitment

The camp is 6-weeks-long, with 4 hours per week of seminar meetings, plus 6+ hours per week of thinking, writing and informal collaboration.

Activities

You will investigate unsolved problems in mathematics.

As a group, you will choose a few initial research topics during the first week of camp - your mentors will help. Afterwards, your topics may evolve as your research progresses . . . .

You will

make conjectures and try to prove them;
alter your conjectures and try to prove those;
explore examples;
try to construct counter-examples;
try to prove special cases;
try to prove more general cases; and
exercise your analytical skills, communication and writing skills, concentration, acuity, intuition and creativity.

In the process, you will gain practical experience with constructing mathematical proofs while exploring/creating the topics which arise.

Visit U N S O L V E D :, our wiki about unsolved problems in mathematics,

for examples of research topics - but the possibilities are endless . . . .

Click here for some tips on doing mathematics research.

The Camp Seminar

Your group will meet regularly with your mentors in a virtual meeting room - a time to brainstorm together and to "talk math" :)

Your Research Journal

You will keep a personal journal of your work (problems, questions, ideas, guesses, examples, mathematical soliloquies, what you'd like to be able to show, sketches of proofs, etc.).

The Camp Blog

You will share your mathematical musings on the camp blog.

The Camp Wiki

Your group will work together to document your group's discoveries on the camp wiki.

Technical Requirements and Details

You will need a broadband-connected computer with a web cam and a headset microphone to log in to the camp's online meeting rooms.

Our online meeting and collaboration tools are very user-friendly.

The Camp's Virtual Research Environment

During seminar and other ad hoc camp meetings, your group will

video/audio/text chat;
share electronic documents (e.g. image files, pdf's, links, etc.);
create/edit documents collaboratively; and
brainstorm on collaborative sketchpads.

Between online meetings, you will collaborate via the blog and wiki.

As a group, together, you will encounter and wrangle with the U N S O L V E D . . . .

Participant Testimonials

See below to learn how past participants describe Camp Euclid!

History

Our first camp was in the summer of 2010. We have, approximately, 125 alumni!

Details

Summer 2021 Dates

July 5 - August 13

Weekly Schedule

During pre-registration, groups will be assigned and meeting times scheduled.

Tuition and Financial Aid

The tuition is $1400. Our grant program aims to enable students to participate irrespective of financial need.

Grants and Scholarships

Admission/Scheduling is need-blind.

During pre-registration, after being assigned to a group, every prospective participant may apply for scholarships and need-based tuition waivers, if any.

Euclid Lab is a nonprofit, publicly supported 501(c)(3) organization. Tuition and financial aid funds may vary per camp. In past camps, every prospective participant's financial need has been met.

How to Apply

Apply by the fifth Saturday before camp begins!

Click here for details on how to apply + for Camp Euclid!

It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment. - C. F. Gauss

Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all. - Hypatia

"Camp Euclid definitely pushed me forward to become a more diligent, sophisticated, and hardworking student. Instead of being limited to the many math exercises provided in school, it provided me with an opportunity to confront a new level of challenges. It helped me to pursue new opportunities, when my educational opportunities were limited because of transportation and financial factors. Although it was very demanding to manage my online meeting time with other academic commitments, I was able to promptly deliver presentations and made some progress on an unsolved problem. In addition, it helped me to see the beauty of mathematics. While I assumed many of the solutions have been found for existing problems, it was amazing to see how there are so many unsolved problems, and it truly inspired me to improve my math skills to partially contribute to the processes of finding the answers for them." - GiHun Choi, Camp Euclid, Fall 2011

Du Zhang

"Camp Euclid was my first time doing math research. It completely changed my perspective of math and taught me the basic principles of math research: patience, experiment and conjecture. The problems we worked on are fun, mind blowing but understandable. More importantly, I got to meet motivated math students from all over the nation. It's been half a year and I still keep in touch with a number of them." - Du Zhang, Camp Euclid, Fall 2011

"As far as I remember, I have always liked math. For me, the gush of satisfaction when I did well on standardized tests, solving a difficult problem, was the sweetest treat that made me forget all the hard brain-struggles. But this mere interest wavered if I didn't achieve well enough on tests. However, Camp Euclid presented me with a series of difficult questions that, not only us, but so many ingenious mathematicians have pondered upon. I wrote out many ideas and casted many experiments that seemed to be leading nowhere. But when I finally found the patterns and shared each of our discoveries with my teammates, putting the puzzle pieces together of this great enigma, I could feel the true joy of mathematics. Unlike what school has always taught me: Find the Answer, I learned how to appreciate the joy of this pattern-finding, the ability to connect some problems that might seem totally (crazily!) different, and the power of cooperation (as they say, 'more' brains are better than one) that led to a great many discoveries. It was well above worth it." - Jiyoun Jennifer Ha, Camp Euclid, Summer 2011

"More than just learning and discussing math, Camp Euclid shows students what real mathematical research is like. It encourages students to delve into topics far beyond high school depth. The camp introduces students to worlds they never knew existed." - Brian Liou, Camp Euclid, Spring 2011