From: rusinSubject: Putnam prep sessions return! Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2015 11:29:41 -0500 (CDT) Faculty, Please announce in your undergraduate classes: It's time to sign up for the Putnam competition! The Putnam is a nationwide mathematics competition open to all undergraduates. You can win a graduate fellowship to Harvard University! The questions are very fun -- but very challenging. Here is one from last year: "On each face of a regular icosahedron, a nonnegative integer is written. These twenty integers sum to 39. Show that there must be two faces that have the same integer written on them and share a vertex." We will have practice sessions for the Putnam exam every MONDAY this semester, 5pm - 7pm in RLM 9.166, starting one week from today -- Oct 12. We provide free pizza because it has been scientifically proven to help students solve challenging math problems :-) . Students who won't attend this first meeting are encouraged to contact Dave Rusin (RLM 9.140) to register. The contest itself will be December 5. Last year UT fielded a great group of strong students -- four of our students placed in the top 10% of all contestants! -- and we can do well again this year if you encourage your best students to participate. Thank you for your help. Dave Rusin