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Advisor Emerson Roman |
MY WORK
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IB CHARACTERISTIC INQUIRERS
For my Extended Essay, I analyzed the presence of mathematics between social interactions. My inspiration was the famous problem called "The Small World Problem" in which Stanley Millgram conducted an experiment to determine who close are we from each other. He concluded that you're 5 people away from anyone else in the entire world, this means that there are only five acquaintances between someone and Bill Gates or Barack Obama. However Milgram didn't take a mathematical approach but more an experimental one, yet, network analysis evolved and there are hundreds of network models that can prove this. I decided not only to do my own mathematical model but also to determine the "degree of separation" or how many acquaintances are between everyone in my school. The model has all the small-world properties and my findings were that the degree of separation is 2.2. In my Extended Essay, the predominant IB characteristic was inquirer, as this topic was something totally new which we didn’t saw in class; the level of complexity was higher. Yet, everything I learned was working individually. This was a challenge as this volume of information can turn overwhelming, which it did. I also felt frustrated as it seemed impossible, however with patients and research I was able to understand the basics, which were the foundation of my extended essay. Being an enquirer also means being patient and persistent. The main takeaway from my Extended Essay was not only the parameters I obtained from it, but also being patient with oneself and managing resources. Mental resources are indeed limited and therefore they shall be managed; This was the key to success. As I mentioned I felt overwhelmed with myself having doubts if I chose the right topic, if it was a topic within the scope of the extended essay or if I had the ability to do it. By managing my resources and being patient I eventually understood and I was able to digest all the information and acquire new knowledge, which led me to further researching and ultimately, my extended essay. One lesson I acquired from the extended essay I will use in the future is to triangulate information. As I mentioned, there are many ways of doing a network model, many of them look very similar, yet they aren't. I learned that triangulate data makes is not only valid but reliable. Which made me understand better everything. Even triangulating information between complex research papers and simpler papers made the difference. This helped me achieve a higher level of complexity. |
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