58th Annual STS (1998–1999)
Finalists
Scott Michael Safranek

Scott Michael Safranek, 17, of Gaithersburg, concludes from his mathematics project for the Intel Science Talent Search that a baseball player's future batting average may be predictable. A baseball fan, Scott studied the long-term behavior of certain random phenomena and applied his findings to answer the question: "If you know a player's current batting average, can you predict what the player's batting average will be after a large number of additional at-bats?" Scott believes the answer is "yes," based on his proof of a weak convergence result. Scott, who completed elementary school math by the end of the third grade, attends Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring. A winner in numerous mathematics competitions, he was also a participant in the Ross Young Scholarship Program at Ohio State University. Scott enjoys martial arts, bowling, poker, poetry, philosophy and listening to music—especially hard rock and blues. The son of Richard and Beverly Safranek, he plans to study math at Columbia preparing for a career as a college professor.

Back to List of 1999 Intel Science Talent Search Finalists