Danica McKellar used to play Winnie Cooper, Fred Savage's childhood love interest on The Wonder Years. Now she could star in a remake of Good Will Hunting, and she wouldn't have to act. McKellar, 24, is an honest-to-goodness math whiz, and the UCLA grad has earned what might be dubbed the Oscar of the numbers game: her own theorem. McKellar recently had a paper published in Britain's Journal of Physics A: Mathematics & General after she — along with UCLA professor Lincoln Chayes and fellow student Brandy Winn — provided mathematical proof for a theorem dealing with magnetism in two dimensions. It's now informally called the Chayes-McKellar-Winn Theorem. ''We didn't know if it was going to be true,'' says McKellar. ''Sometimes we'd work all day and, at the end, find a flaw in the logic.'' McKellar — currently starring as Rizzo in Grease at the Grove Theatre in Upland, Calif. — has even found a way to combine her first career with her new one. She writes a math-advice column on the Celebrity Sightings website and is putting together an educational CD-ROM series. ''I love math and helping kids,'' she says. ''[The column] is a kind of gift to my fans.''


Sign up for EW.com's What to Watch Newsletter!

What to watch on TV. Hear what's on tap for the night ahead and get witty, morning after recaps of top shows (sent weekday mornings).
  • Print
  • Del.icio.us
  • Google
  • StumbleUpon
  • Facebook
  • Digg
  • More

Copyright © 2008 Entertainment Weekly and Time Inc. All rights reserved.