Pizza and Problems

The last few Fall semesters, we have hosted Pizza and Problems sessions in order to help students prepare for the annual Putnam Mathematical Competition in December. We get together on Friday afternoons (usually); we supply pizza and we supply problems. All students, staff, and faculty are welcome to join us, even if they are not interested in the Putnam Competition.

The problems generally involve more than one area of mathematics and are more like puzzles than homework problems. As we chew on these problems, we also chew on pizza. After some time (20-40 minutes or so), we discuss the problems, share strategies, and help each other with them. These sessions are lots of fun and very popular, and we will continue doing Pizza and Problems this Spring also.

The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition is an annual, continent-wide mathematics event for undergraduates. The competition is administered by The Mathematical Association of America, and takes place every year on the first Saturday in December. The 67th Annual William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition was held on December 1, 2007.

In each row of the table that follows, the first link will download the problem set associated with the meeting date in the first column of the row. In the third column, the link will take you to our Wiki, where you can view student solutions and add solutions of your own. For a full set of directions on how to use the Wiki, you can go directly to:

http://msenux.redwoods.edu/wiki/index.php/Pizza_and_Problems

If you visit the above URL, you will find instructions for:

  • editing Wiki pages,
  • entering mathematics, and
  • embedding images.
Fall 2007 Meetings
Event Date Pizza Problems Solutions
September 28, 2007 Pizza Problems #1 Solutions #1
October 12, 2007 Pizza Problems #2 Solutions #2
October 26, 2007 Pizza Problems #3 Solutions #3
November 9, 2007 Pizza Problems #4 Solutions #4
November 30, 2007 Pizza Problems #5 Solutions #5
Spring 2008 Meetings
Event Date Pizza Problems Solutions
March 7, 2008 Pizza Problems #1 Solutions #1
March 28, 2008 Pizza Problems #2 Solutions #2
April 18, 2008 Pizza Problems #3 Solutions #3