The audience for your expository paper is high-school students. Assume that your reader knows high-school algebra but not calculus.

Your task is to choose a topic connected with mathematics or applied mathematics (a topic different from the subject of your technical paper) and to tell your high-school audience about the topic. The goal is that after reading your essay, a high-school student would be convinced that mathematics is fun or interesting or worth learning more about.

The topic is your choice; be creative. Here are a few conceivable topics to illustrate the flavor of what I think could make an interesting essay.

• the method of mathematical induction
• what is π?
• what is infinity?
• why is a coffee cup like a doughnut?
• should you play the lottery?
• understanding the size of the national debt
• how long is a piece of string?
• why is the sky blue?

You may write on one of these sample topics if you wish, but I hope that you will think up your own topic.

Your paper should be written in LaTeX using a standard documentclass. The length should be about 800 words.

Since this paper is intended to be accessible to high-school students, you may be able to write the paper based solely on your own knowledge, without doing any research. In that case, you do not need to include a bibliography. But if you do borrow some of the ideas from external sources, then be sure to document your sources to avoid plagiarism.