The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition is the largest and best-known individual math competition for undergraduates in Canada and the United States. It takes place this year on Saturday December 7, in two three-hour halves. York students will write it at York. For more background on the competition, see
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The Department of Mathematics and Statistics runs training sessions each fall to help students prepare for the event by sharpening their problem-solving skills. These sessions are also a good opportunity for people who enjoy problem solving to get together on a regular basis. I will organize these sessions in 2024. They will be Mondays at 3:45 in N501 Ross Building.
The person dealing with the administrative aspects of the competition is Professor Mohamed Omar (omarmo@yorku.ca).
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Here are some first practice problems for the Fall 2024 practice sessions.
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Here is a link to a list from Northwestern University of some "easy" Putnam problems --- that is, relatively easy compared to other Putnam problems! They are still challenging. Find some that interest you, and work on them for a while. Don't try to look up answers yet ... at least not until November. We can discuss these during our meetings.
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There are also a lot of problems and math summaries arranged by math topic on the Putnam page of Professor Skoufranis, who organized these sessions in 2021.
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Neal Madras, York Putnam Co-Supervisor
madras@yorku.ca
Professor of Mathematics and Statistics
S616 Ross
York University
