Biography – Curtis Cooper
Allison Huedepohl
10/11/13
Curtis
Cooper wrote the article “n-Card Tricks” with Hang Chen, featured in the May
2009 edition of The College Mathematics
Journal. His mathematical career began in high school, when he first
realized that he wanted to enter the field of mathematics. He has taught
courses at University of Central Missouri as a professor in mathematics and
computer science. One of his best-known achievements would be finding the
largest known prime number.
Due to his father’s career as a professor,
Cooper and his family moved around a lot while he was growing up. From
kindergarten through twelfth grade, he moved five times (Cooper, 2013). These
moves were from Kearney, Nebraska, to Winona, Minnesota, back to Kearney,
Nebraska, then to Lincoln, Nebraska, and finally finishing high school in
Joplin, Missouri (Cooper, 2013). As a result, he experienced a lot of different
schools and teachers. However, in ninth grade, while in Lincoln, he had a very
good math teacher, and it was then Cooper realized that he wanted to have a
career in mathematics (Cooper, 2013). His interest in math started at a young
age, and continued to grow all throughout his life.
After
graduating from high school, Cooper started his college career in
Culver-Stockton College, graduating with a BA in mathematics in 1974 (Cooper,
2013). He continued his education at Iowa State University, earning both his MS
and Ph.D. from the college (Chen & Cooper, 2009). It was during this time
in Ames that he met his wife (Cooper, 2013). He is an avid Nebraska football
fan (Chen & Cooper, 2009). This seems to be odd, considering he earned his
masters and doctorate from Iowa State. According to Cooper, “I root for Iowa
State for everything except when they play Nebraska” (2013). He grew up with
parents and siblings who attended Nebraska, and his fandom began at an early
age (Cooper, 2013). It seems to make sense why he would remain a Nebraska fan,
even with spending so many years at Ames and Iowa State.
Cooper
began his teaching career at the University of Central Missouri in 1978 and has
been teaching there ever since (Cooper, 2013). The University of Central
Missouri is located in Warrensburg, Missouri. He has only taught at that one
college since becoming a professor. He began teaching half of his courses in
mathematics, while the other half were computer science, but due to the huge
need for computer science faculty, he only teaches computer science courses now
(Cooper, 2013). He started as an Assistant Professor, and has become a
Professor during his 36 years at University of Central Missouri (Cooper, 2013).
It seems unique that while his father was also a professor, he moved the family
around quite a bit during Cooper’s childhood. Cooper took the opposite
approach, and has not moved once since beginning his career in academia.
Early in his
career, he wrote a few journal articles alone. One such article was using
geometric series to solve a probability problem. The probability problem
involved three players (A, B, and C) toss a single die until each has rolled a
one, but A rolls the first one, B rolls the second one and C rolls the first
one (Cooper, 1986). A few years earlier he had written an article about
applying a generalized Fibonacci sequence. In this article, Cooper uses a
generalized Fibonacci sequence to solve an expectation problem involving a coin
being tossed repeatedly (Cooper, 1984). His interest in Fibonacci related
topics continues throughout his academic career.
Cooper
has collaborated with several of the University of Central Missouri faculty
during his many years at the institution. For the first twenty-five years of
his career at University of Central Missouri, Cooper mainly collaborated with
Bob Kennedy (Cooper, 2013). Together the pair wrote 30-40 articles (Cooper,
2013). Both of these mathematicians showed interest in number theory (Cooper
& Kennedy, 1989). This shared interest reflects in many of the articles
that they wrote together.
Cooper has worked
with other University of Central Missouri faculty, as well as faculty from
other institutions. He wrote the article that appeared in the College
Mathematics Journal with Hang Chen, who Cooper has collaborated with on
multiple occasions. Chen is also a professor at University of Central Missouri
and Cooper and Chen usually write articles in the area of card tricks (Chen
& Cooper, 2009). They also work on games and puzzles together, and write a
Sudoku puzzle each week for the newspaper at University of Central Missouri
(Cooper, 2013). Cooper’s work with Chen show a different interest, veering from
the number theory work with Robert Kennedy. Instead, Cooper and Chen share
interest in discrete mathematics and combinatorics (Cooper, 2013). This is
easily seen in their work with puzzles and games.
Cooper has also
collaborated on articles with Lawrence Somer. Somer is an Ordinary Professor Emeritus at The
Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. (“Department Faculty”, 2013).
The two recently wrote an article about Lucas pseudoprimes in The Fibonacci Quarterly (Cooper &
Somer, 2010). As Somer is not faculty at University of Central Missouri, nor is
he even in the same state as Cooper, this shows that Cooper works well outside
of just his fellow faculty members.
Cooper’s work with
Peter Anderson was also featured in The
Fibonacci Quarterly. Anderson is part of the computer science department at
the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York (“Peter G.
Anderson”). Again, this demonstrates that Cooper has an interest in topics
regarding the Fibonacci sequence (as this appeared in The Fibonacci Quarterly). It also indicates that he works with
mathematics professors as well as computer science professor, which helps merge
his two areas of teaching together even more.
One
of Cooper’s most significant mathematical contributions would be finding the
largest known prime number. He is the team leader of the University of Central
Missouri’s Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS), which has been looking
for large prime numbers since 1997 (Cooper, 2013). Working with his team, they
have found 3 large Mersenne primes, the latest being found in just January 2013
(Cooper, 2013). GIMPS has been looking for primes for 16 years, so it does not
seem like finding three primes would be very significant. However, Cooper said
that they were “fortunate enough to have found 3 large Mersenne primes” (2013).
Three does not seem to be very much, but he considers the team to be lucky just
to find any prime numbers. These are extremely significant contributions to the
mathematics field.
Cooper
is still very actively participating in the fields of mathematics and computer
science. His work with GIMPS is continuing, searching for the next prime
number. The prime number found in January had 17,425,170 decimal digits
(Cooper, 2013). The next one will be even larger. The first and second primes
found by Cooper and his team were found in December 2005 and September 2006
(Cooper, 2013). A lot of time could pass before the next largest prime is found
again.
Curtis
Cooper knew even in ninth grade that he wanted to have a future in the field of
mathematics. He has published many articles during his time as a mathematician,
as well as worked with other mathematicians and computer scientists across the
nation. He is currently in his 36th year of teaching at the
University of Central Missouri, and his favorite aspect of teaching would be
seeing students understand new ideas (Cooper, 2013). This is very rewarding for
him. His work with the GIMPS team since 1997 has resulted in finding 3 larger
Mersenne primes, and he continues that work today. Cooper will keep writing
mathematical articles and teaching for many more years to come, and continue to
make contributions to the mathematical field for many years to come.
Reference List:
Chen, H., & Cooper, C. (2009). n-card tricks. The
College Mathematics Journal, 40(3), 196-
201.
Cooper, C. (1984). Application of a generalized Fibonacci
sequence. The College
Mathematics
Journal, 15(2), 145-146.
Cooper, C. (1986). Geometric series and a probability
problem. The American Mathematical
Monthly,
93(2), 126-127.
Cooper, C. (2013, October 2). Interview by Allison Huedepohl
[email correspondence].
Biography questions.
Cooper, C. N., & Kennedy, R. E. (1989). Chebyshev’s
Inequality and Natural Density. The
American
Mathematical Monthly, 96(2), 118-124.
Cooper, C. & Somer, L. (2010). Lucas (a1, a2, …, ak = ± 1)
pseudoprimes. The Fibonacci
Quarterly
48(2), 98-113.
Department faculty. (2013). Retrieved from
http://math.cua.edu/faculty/
Peter G. Anderson - home page. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://www.cs.rit.edu/~pga/
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