Tuesday problem-solving sessions are 19:00–21:00 on Thursdays, in room STEM-664, 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.
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 |
---|---|---|
27 sept | questions hints | |
4 oct | questions hints | inequalities |
11 oct | questions hints | number theory |
18 oct | questions hints | linear algebra |
25 oct | reading | week |
1 nov | questions hints | groups and permutation groups |
8 nov | questions hints | an $\epsilon$ of analysis and convergence |
15 nov | questions hints | some discreet combinatorics |
22 nov | questions | |
29 nov | questions | |
putnam | saturday 3 december | 10:00–13:00 and 15:00–18:00 |
❄ ☃ ❄ ☃ ❄ | ||
28 feb | questions hints | we're baaaack… |
7 march | questions hints | |
$\pi$ | questions hints | |
march 21 | questions hints | |
march 28 | questions hints | |
april 4 | no problems (sad face) | |
april 11 | working on previous problems | |
july 27 | questions hints solutions | |
august 3 | questions hints | |
august 10 | questions hints solutions | |
august 17 | no problems | |
august 24 | questions hints | |
september 12 | questions hints solutions | |
september 21 | No new set this week; go over previous couple of sets. | trying out thursdays… in the future, monday or thursday? |
september 28 | questions hints | |
october 5 | questions hints | Some general discussion of inequalities first? |
october 12 | questions hints | |
october 19 | questions hints | |
november 2 | questions hints | |
november 9 | questions hints | |
november 30 | questions | |
2024 january 18 | questions hints | |
2024 january 25 | questions hints | |
2024 february 1 | questions hints | |
2024 february 8 | questions hints | |
2024 february 15 | questions hints | |
2024 february 29 | questions hints | |
2024 march 14 | questions hints | |
2024 march 28 | questions | |
2024 april 4 | questions | |
2024 april 25 | questions | |
2024 may 31 | questions | |
2024 june 6 | questions | |
2024 september 16 | questions | welcome back! |
2024 september 23 | questions | |
2024 september 30 | questions | |
2024 october 7 | questions | |
2024 october 21 | questions | |
2024 october 28 | questions | |
2024 november 4 | questions | |
2024 november 11 | questions | |
2024 november 18 | questions | |
2024 november 25 | questions | |
2024 december 2 | questions |
Contact me.