Word: putnam
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Welcome to the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, which was administered for the 63rd time in its grueling history on Dec. 7. The Putnam is arguably the most prestigious math contest in the world. It's also a rite of passage for math cognoscenti--think of it as a coming-out party for the next generation of beautiful minds. Do well, and you'll earn the envy of your peers and the inside track on a future Nobel. Do badly and--well, don't feel too bad. John Nash took the test twice and never scored among the top five...
...Putnam Competition was originally proposed by a Boston lawyer named William Lowell Putnam as a friendly intercollegiate math competition, and it was first held in 1938 (bragging rights that year went to the University of Toronto). Each year a three-professor committee spends four or five months devising the 12 problems, which are arranged in order of increasing difficulty. It's an all-day affair: two three-hour sessions with a two-hour break. No calculators, no notes, no mercy. "There certainly is a mystique surrounding the exam," says Ravi Vakil, co-author of a book about the exam...
...past four years Rick Du Puy has spent the first Saturday of December participating in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition. Du Puy knows he has no chance of winning. He knows he is one of only a handful of humanities concentrators spending six hours in the Science Center trying to solve 12 proofs. But, as he says, “Emotionally I miss math a lot. The exam is like my Peter Pan. I don’t do well but it’s a fun thing to do. It keeps math alive for me. You emerge...
...Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, John Putnam extols the value of his name, telling others that he can’t let dishonesty tarnish his stellar reputation. In the crucible of academic pressure that exists at Harvard, however, many students put their names on the line every semester in the interest of making the grade. Many would argue that they don’t even have the chance to keep their shreds of honesty, as Harvard doesn’t always do a good job making it clear what acts count as an academic transgression...
...Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, John Putnam extols the value of his name, telling others that he can’t let dishonesty tarnish his stellar reputation. In the crucible of academic pressure that exists at Harvard, however, many students put their names on the line every semester in the interest of making the grade. Many would argue that they don’t even have the chance to keep their shreds of honesty, as Harvard doesn’t always do a good job making it clear what acts count as an academic transgression...