Quantumplations by Max – A site devoted to my obsession with physics and math.

Hi! I’m Max Orton, a high school senior at Northwest Academy in Portland, OR.

I’ve been fascinated by physics and math for as long as I can remember. In 9th grade, I showed my high school math teacher some of the things I’d been experimenting with, and he recommended I find someone more advanced to work with. I ended up studying with Dr. Heather Finotti for more than two years as a result, and she was able to show me more formal approaches to a wide range of subjects I’d been pursuing on my own.

I’ve since read all of Leonard Susskind’s “Theoretical Minimum” series and have watched roughly 120 hours of his recorded lectures, making sure I was able to master the underlying mathematics along the way. I’ve spent the last two years teaching myself as much as I can about theoretical physics.

In 10th grade I was able to meet with Prof. Emeritus David Griffiths of Reed College. After looking through my work, he recommended me for Reed’s Young Scholars program. I spent 11th grade working in Reed’s Research Reactor and am now back for my senior year in a physics class.

I’ve continued to pursue several theoretical topics on my own (write-ups below). For example, in 11th grade I created a video demonstrating my homemade method for quantizing a Klein Gordon field. More recent work includes my perturbative method for interacting quantum fields, and my model of interacting classical relativistic strings.

I’m hoping to find a college with a strong physics department that has the flexibility to allow me to continue to pursue these more advanced topics that I love so much. My goal is to eventually get a PhD and become a researcher and professor of theoretical physics.

Download My STEM Portfolio

Projects

These are 5 projects I’ve been working on in the last couple of years. Keep in mind that I’ve done most of this work on my own. I haven’t had access to a physics mentor familiar with this material (though I hope to someday). In some cases, the only evidence I have that these solutions are correct is the math itself.

Modeling Relativistic Strings with Level Curves

My most recent project – Fall 2024.

Write-up
Perturbative Expansion for Interacting Field Theories

Recent project – Summer 2024

Write-up
Deriving the Canonical Quantization Approach for the Path Integral

Junior year project – Spring 2024

Write-up
Solutions to the Wave Equation

Sophomore and Junior years – 2022-2023

Write-up
Quantizing a Klein Gordon Field

Junior year project – Fall & Spring 2024

Write-up
My Notebooks

2022-2024

Excerpts

A (Mostly) Geometric Argument for Circular Relativistic Strings

My Homemade Method for the Klein-Gordon Equation

When I’m not chasing down physics problems

I do martial arts, I play piano, and I do a lot of outdoorsy stuff in and around my hometown of Portland, OR.

Pukulan Martial Arts

I’ve studied Pukulan Kuntao Silat, an Indonesian Martial Art, for over 10 years. I achieved the rank of black belt this past summer. Below are photos from the intensive 48-hour (no sleeping!) black-belt test that involved my demonstrating about 20 forms and running 10-miles, alongside several other huge physical challenges. There is also a video from a demo my martial arts school did last summer in a public park here in Portland.

"One With Heart" Martial Arts demo

Piano

Both of my parents are professional musicians, and I’ve been playing the piano since I was 4 years old. Here’s a video of me playing one of my favorite pieces: The Sonate in D-Minor (K9) by Domenico Scarlatti.

Artistic Response Short Film

This is a short film I created as an artistic response to Matthew Desmond’s book “Poverty by America” and Phillip Levine’s poem “What Work Is” for my Humanities 4 class. The imagery is based on a pencil sketch of mine.