Twelve students from Hamilton’s Mathletics team competed nationally on Dec. 1 in the William Lowell Putnam mathematics competition. The students on this year’s team are Jeremy Adelman ’13, Julian Aronowitz ’14, Sitong Chen ’16, Yifei Chen ’13, Robert Huben ’15, Jessie Shelton ’15, Sunrose Shrestha ’14, Justin Smith ’14, Josh Snyder ’13, Yonghun Song ’13, Peter Talpey ’14 and Evan Van Tassell ’13. They’ve trained for the competition throughout the fall semester with Assistant Professor of Mathematics Andrew Dykstra.
The Putnam competition, which began in 1938, is designed to stimulate a healthful rivalry in mathematical studies in the colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. The problems on the exam cut across the bounds of various mathematical disciplines, and are often self-contained problems that do not fit into standard categories. In a typical year, the problems are so challenging that the national median individual score is zero. Last year, Hamilton posted a team score of 32 points, which led to a national ranking of #54, its second highest national ranking on record. Results from this year’s exam will be announced in March of 2013.
