A pair of Chico State University mathematicians have been awarded a $200,000 grant to fund research into esoteric math conundrums.

Thomas Mattan and Colin Gallagher, both in the department of mathematics and statistics, received the three-year National Science Foundation grant which is intended to provide research experiences for university professors and students, as well as high school math teachers.

The grant will fund three summer research projects. Each summer six university undergraduates and two high school teachers will come to Chico State to do research into a range of mathematical theories.

For the first summer session, the focus will be on "knot theory," a math concept that asks if two different looking knots are actually the same.

The goal is for the summer projects to result in information worthy of publication in professional journals.

While the math conundrums that will be studied sound a bit esoteric, there are potential financial rewards as well as intellectual gains to be had in the endeavor.

Earlier this year, according to a university press release, a mathematician from another campus produced a solution to the so called "Poincare Conjecture." The supposed answer is still being reviewed by a panel of mathematicians, but if they say it is valid, the researcher is in line to win a $1 million prize offered for the solution.