Organizers: Andrew Yoo, Austin Lei, Zachary Klein
The Putnam Exam is a math competition for undergraduates held once a year. Students work on 12 proof-based problems for 6 hours. This year, the Putnam exam will be on Saturday, December 7th.
The goal of this seminar is to help students prepare for the Putnam Exam, especially those who have no prior experience with the Putnam or other math competitions. The plan for the seminar for most weeks will be a combination of discussing specific topics and working on problems/past Putnam questions related to that topic.
We will meet Mondays from 5:45-7:00 pm in Math 622.
If you would like to join the mailing list, feel free to send an email to Andrew Yoo (hy2774@columbia.edu).
Registering for the Putnam
Columbia students should register for the Putnam via this link. For more details, check out the registration guide here.
| Date | What happened | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 9/30 | We worked on the questions from the 2023 Exam. | 2023 Putnam Exam |
| 10/7 | We talked about sequences, series, and inequalities (like AM-GM and Cauchy-Schwartz). | Worksheet |
| 10/14 | Generating Functions | Worksheet |
| 10/21 | Proof techniques (induction, contradiction, invariants, etc.), Proof writing | Worksheet |
| 10/28 | Number Theory (modular arithmetic, FLT/Euler, CRT, orders, quadratic reciprocity) | Worksheet |
| 11/4 | No meeting. | |
| 11/11 | Trigonometry/Complex Numbers | Worksheet |
| 11/18 | Calculus with Professor Savin | |
| 11/25 | Linear Algebra/Algebra (Polynomials, etc.) | Worksheet |
| 12/2 | Probability/Test Prep | Worksheet |