Mathematical thinking in the Nuclear Navy

Abstract

Ensign Matthew Hornak is a prospective submarine warfare officer and graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, class of 2024. He commissioned as an officer in the Navy through the Carnegie Mellon University Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps the same year, and earned a Bachelor of Philosophy in International and Area Studies with a double major in Mathematics-Economics. He spent his college years pursuing just about as interdisciplinary and rigorous education as one could conjure up at Pitt. While his love for learning motivated his educational path, he quickly grew to appreciate in his time in college that everything he studied influenced one another, and an education in one aspect would be incomplete without the others. A competent naval officer has a strong grasp of current events and cultural competency; a core understanding of international happenings requires an understanding of the economics that underpins these currents; economics studies human interaction, in part, through robust mathematical models and perspectives. As he progressed through these programs, he realized that a core understanding of mathematics would be an invaluable tool at his disposal in synthesizing a vast breadth of knowledge.