New Math

Image credit: Kevin Merrill/Shooting Star

Math Star: McKellar

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.''