Putnam 2008 Scores

The results are in.

Once again, we had a near record number of students (nine) take the Putnam Exam at the end of the Fall semester.

Congratulations to all nine for taking a significant chunk of time out of their day shortly before finals to cogitate deeply on math problems.

This year all of our students scored at least the mode (mode = 0 this year). There were 3627 contestants who took the exam this time, and a score of 0 earned a rank of 2771.5.

Two of our students beat the mode. One of them scored the median (median = 1 this year), joining only 172 other contestants to accomplish this feat. These students earned a rank of 1829. (An improvement of over 940 places above the mode.)

The other student beat both the median and the mode to rank 1660.5 along with 163 other contestants. (A further improvement of over 165 places above the median.)

Yea!

Math Majors Testing

Our math majors are taking their written comprehensive exams now. Wish them good skills.

Math Circles

Here is a great problem a friend of mine found at Math Circle Problem of the Week:

Click on the link and look up the problem from Sunday 12 January 2003.

Summary version: 100 prisoners, isolated from each other. Each day one is selected at random to enter a room with a single light bulb. They can flip the switch, leave it alone, or declare that all 100 prisoners have visited the room. A correct declaration sets all 100 prisoners free, and an incorrect declaration leads to a nastier resolution.

Assuming all 100 want to go free, what strategy can they decide on before the game starts? (They won't be isolated until the game has begun.)

Have fun!