Fall 2006 Undergraduate Mathematics Problem Seminar
Organizers: Professor Michael
Saks and
Professor Steven
Ferry
Time: Tuesday, 3rd period (NOTE DAY CHANGE)
Place: SEC 220
Course Number: 01:640:491:01 (1 credit seminar, by
special permission only)
Text:
The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition 1985-2000: Problems, Solutions, and Commentary (MAA Problem Book Series), by
Kiran S. Kedlaya, Bjorn Poonen, Ravi Vakil, G. Alexanderson, R. Nelsen
General information about the seminar
All students taking the seminar are expected to:
- Attend regularly.
- Participate actively in group problem solving.
- Take their turn presenting a problem solution to the class.
- Read text book chapter to be covered in advance
of the seminar meeting.
- Work on some of the problems from the ``suggested
problems'' list below, or from the textbook, and submit
written work for one problem. (Students taking the seminar
for honors track credit should submit written work on two
problems per week.) You are not necessarily
expected to hand in a full solution to a problem but
you should show evidence that you made a serious effort
on the problem, by presenting examples that you considered
and describing approaches that you tried, and why they did not work.
Suggested Problems
Students are free to work on any problems given in class or in the text
book. The book has complete solutions for the problems contained there,
and you are
expected to submit work for problems whose solution you have not read.