Chad Awtrey publishes research paper on p-adic numbers

Chad Awtrey, assistant professor of mathematics, has published a research article in the most recent volume of the International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics.

His article, “On Galois Groups of Totally and Tamely Ramified Sextic Extensions of Local Fields,” details his innovative approach for computing and proving fundamental properties of the p-adic numbers.

These important numbers are a main tool in computational attacks on many of the most famous unsolved problems in mathematics, and have important applications to internet, data, and national security. Additionally, the p-adic numbers play an exciting role in physics, where they are used to describe the geometry of space-time at small distances and to investigate the chaotic behavior of fractals and other complicated systems.

Awtrey’s research for this article was supported in part by the New Faculty Summer Funding program.