We Use Math continuously frequently adds new careers to the site. The most recent is Psychometrician that makes up to $200, 000 a year.
Psychometrics refers to the measurement of an individual’s psychological attributes, including the knowledge, skills, and abilities a professional might need to work in a particular job or profession. Also, psychometricians write exams such as the MCAT, LSAT, GMAT, SAT, ACT, and Advance Placement test.
The American Mathematics Competitions (AMC) is dedicated to the goal of strengthening the mathematical capabilities of America’s youth by identifying, recognizing and rewarding excellence in mathematics through a series of national contests. The entry examinations are the AMC 8, AMC 10, and AMC 12 and are designed for students in grades 6 through 12. The AMC contests are intended for everyone from the average student at a typical school who enjoys mathematics to the very best student at the most special school. More information can be found at http://www.unl.edu/amc.
Researchers at the University of Missouri are using mathematical models in an interesting way to study the body’s reaction to fear. Guoshi Li said he hopes that his research can contribute to new drugs that can help PTSD victims. He said, "Treatment for PTSD patients depends on which connection stores the fear extinction memory and which circuit misfires. With our model, we can figure out what specific connections store fear/extinction memory and how such connections are disrupted in the pathology of PTSD, which may lead to the suggestions of new drugs to treat the disease." Here is a link to the article:
In the n-body problem, we seek to describe the interaction between a fixed number of objects under Newton’s Law of Gravity. A simple equation given by Newton in 1687 describes the gravitational attraction between two objects. Using a computer, we can compute the sum of the forces acting on a fixed number of objects. Once this is known, we can deduce where the object will be in the next time step.
These images show some newly discovered periodic (repeating) orbits for 3 and 4 bodies.
Caption A: Three bodies with equal mass orbiting on a figure eight. This result was published in 2000.
Caption B: Three bodies of unequal mass. This system is similar to a planet orbiting a binary star system.
Caption C: Two pairs of bodies orbiting about each other.
Caption D: An orbit discovered in 2008 by Tiancheng Ouyang, Duokui Yan, and Skyler Simmons at BYU.
This problem is far from a mathematical curiosity. For example, NASA uses computations like these to model motions for launches of space probes and other spacecraft.