In the past few years, UW students have done incredibly well in the national Putnam Mathematics Competition. And many of these students have been CSE majors.
The big asset that we have is a “training course” (The Art of Problem Solving) taught by two young faculty members in Mathematics. This training is essential to doing well in the competition.
They would like to recruit CSE students for the coming year. Please see the announcement below, and please seriously consider this. With the help of these two great Math profs, you can do exceedingly well in this top national competition.
—–Original Message—–
From: Ioana Dumitriu [mailto:dumitriu@math.washington.edu]
Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2009 4:50 PM
To: Ed Lazowska
Cc: Julia Pevtsova
Subject: asking for your help with Math 480
Dear Ed,
We’re starting our recruiting season for the Putnam, and with that, we’re trying to advertise for our Math 480 class. We would be most grateful if you could help us by forwarding the following announcement to all Computer Science students whom you think might be interested in it. (We promise not to steal any of them away for Math. =))
Thank you very much for your help.
Best regards,
Ioana & Julia
Math 480A, “The Art of Problem Solving”
Tu-Th, 3:30-4:50 pm, RAI 116
Instructors: Ioana Dumitriu and Julia Pevtsova
“A math course unlike any other” *
This course is intended to expose students to the artful side of problem solving by going over numerous examples from various fields of mathematics, including combinatorics, number theory, algebra, geometry, functional equations, and calculus. We intend to showcase a number of mathematical “tricks”: surprising techniques that work on large classes of problems, to present classical questions and puzzles, and to teach the students how to construct, write and present advanced mathematical proofs.
If you are a math enthusiast who enjoys puzzles, you will find this course both fun and challenging. We welcome both veteran contest-takers as well as students with no previous competition experience who want to broaden their mathematical horizons. Problems will vary in the level of difficulty, to accommodate a broad range of backgrounds.
Sample topics are: mathematical induction; the extreme, pigeonhole, and inclusion-exclusion principles; permutations; invariants; graph theory; partitions; number-theoretic congruences, the $d$, $\sigma$, $\phi$ and $\mu$ functions; weight functions as an existence-proving technique; functional relations;geometry and trigonometry; discrete and continuous probability.
This 3-credit course is being offered in conjunction with the weekly Putnam prep sessions which students will be encouraged to attend for extra practice; however, there is no obligation to take the contest if you register for the class. Student evaluation will be based on class presentations, weekly homework, and a final exam.
* according to one of last year’s students.