For an example session, see the notes from 25 Oct 1007 or 23 Sep 2004.

Goal

Students solve stimulating, challenging problems to integrate their knowledge of several branches of mathematics, develop mathematical reasoning, and perfect a repertoire of skills, strategies, and heuristics. They work individually and in teams to analyze problems, create models, formulate solutions, and communicate their solutions to others in carefully constucted formal proofs. The problems require much more than simple recall from memory, they cannot be solved algorithmically, and they frequently require analysis from several points of view and numerous false starts.

Competition

Students may compete individually and/or as a team in the Putnam Mathematical Competition that takes place the first Saturday in December.

Local resources

• Dudeneys' puzzle of "Catching the Mice"
• A pyramid problem
• Shasha's Surprising strings
• Recent A1 Putnam problems
• Recent B1 Putnam problems

Resources on the web

• Problems of the week
  • Macalester College POTW since 1968
  • Perdue University Problem of the Week
  • Stetson University Math Magic Problem of the Month
  • Bradley University Problem of the Week
  • United States Military Academy's Problem of the Week
  • Southwest Missouri State University's Problem Corner
• William Lowell Putnam. Mathematical Competition
  • Mathematical Association of America (MAA) home page: http://www.maa.org/
  • MAA's page for the Putnam Competition: http://www.maa.org/awards/putnam.html
  • William Lowell Putnam Competition Archive at University of Nebraska Lincoln
  • John Scholes's Putnam Problems page
  • Dave Rusin's Questions and solutions for recent Putnam exams
  • A few school pages on the Putnam: Harvard, Harvey Mudd, Stanford
• COMAP, the Consortium for Mathematics and its Applications
  Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM)
• Mathematical Olympiad (for high school students)
  • International Mathematical Olympiad
  • American Mathematics Competitions including the USA athematics Olympiad
  • USA Mathematical Olympiad Archive at University of Nebraska Lincoln
• MathArchives list of links for Mathematics Contests, Competitions, and Problem Sets
• Puzzle pages
  • Nick's Mathematical Puzzles
  • The rec.puzzles Archive
  • The Prime Puzzles & Problems Connection
  • Ken's Puzzle of the Week
  • Mike's PotW (Puzzle of the Week)

D. Joyce
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
Clark University
This file is located at http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/mpst/