66th Annual STS (2006-2007)
Finalists
John Vincent Pardon

NORTH CAROLINA
John Vincent Pardon, 17, of Chapel Hill, researched the unfolding of simple closed curves for his Intel Science Talent Search project in mathematics. John showed that any rectifiable closed curve can be deformed via an expansive motion to form a convex set. For a curve to be convex, the line joining any two points in the curve must not cross the curve. John's result can be understood by thinking of a loop of string with the ends connected, lying on a table, with no crossings: he showed it is possible to move this into a convex shape without allowing any two points to come closer to each other. This result was known for polygons; John used a new approach to extend the result to a wide range of shapes. At Durham Academy, John participates in track and cross country. He plays cello in the Honors All State Orchestra, was one of the top 25 algorithm writers in the TopCoder competition, and received a gold prize at the 2005 and 2006 International Olympiads in Informatics. A robotics apprentice in 2005, John spent last summer on an organic farm in Costa Rica. The son of Dr. William and Joyce Pardon, John hopes to study math and computer science at CalTech or Princeton.