Tuesday problem-solving sessions are 19:00–21:00 on Mondays, in room STEM-464, run by mike newman. You don't need to attend these sessions to write the Putnam, and you don't need to write the Putnam to attend these sessions. But if you are interested in attending the practice sessions and/or writing the Putnam, please email me.
There are some (hopefully useful) notes on various topics that come up on the Putnam:
We'll have a problem set each week. There will usually be a "theme" topic; I might give a (short!) talk on some useful results and techniques. Problems are not limited to the theme of the week. Each meeting I encourage students to present their solutions. This is a non-judgemental inclusive event, so everyone is welcome. There is no shame in not solving everything by yourself.
One obstacle that students sometimes face is that they solve a problem but end up not writing down a nice solution. The Putnam is graded rather severely: 1/10 on a question means some nontrivial progress. So I will make a suggestion: write out complete solutions for all the problems you solve! Think about them, rewrite them, go through a few drafts. Can you improve the presentation? Can you improve the arguement? Sneakily enough, this will help you in all your mathematical pursuits…
I will post problems several days (even a week?) before each meeting, and hints one week after the meeting later, and maybe solutions at some point. The files are set up so that you can easily look at one hint or solution without accidentally seeing hints for everything. But it's more fun to solve problems yourself! Here is a rough outline.
| date | problems | discussion topic |
|---|---|---|
| 28 sept | questions hints | |
| 5 oct | questions hints | |
| 12 oct | too much… | …π? |
| 19 oct | questions | |
| 26 oct | ||
| 2 nov | ||
| 9 nov | ||
| 16 nov | ||
| 23 nov | ||
| 30 nov | ||
| putnam | 2026 saturday 5 december | 10:00–13:00 and 15:00–18:00 |
Contact me.