AwesomeMath (Texas) Begins!

AwesomeMath Summer Camp has emerged as one of the premier problem solving experiences, drawing top students from around the country and around the world.  This year AwesomeMath has expanded to two campuses, UT Dallas and UC Santa Cruz.

The Texas session will begin tomorrow and several Metroplex Math Circle students will be attending this year.  While separate programs, both AwesomeMath and MMC were founded and are directed by Dr. Titu Andreescu.

Congratulations and best of luck to all of the local and global students selected to attend AwesomeMath 2009.

AMS Article: Math Circles and Olympiads

Wenhua Ma brought an interesting article to our attention from the Notices of the AMS:

Math Circles and Olympiads, MSRI Asks:  Is the U.S. Coming of Age?

The Math Circle Experience

Extracurricular circles in a variety of subjects began in Hungary in the 1800s, all with the goal of providing young students opportunities to pursue personal interests to the fullest. Today they are considered a standard part of the Eastern-Europeanstudent experience, and participation in them is regarded as just as natural as participation in sports activities is viewed in the U.S. Although there is no set protocol to a math circle experience, all circles have the same goal of sharing the intellectual appeal and beauty of mathematics with as large an audience as possible. They engage faculty from both secondary and post-secondary institutions in their operation and successfully welcome students of all backgrounds to the mathematical experience.

Circles now exist in many countries, including the U.S. (see also [1], for instance), and follow multiple styles and approaches. Given the success of the Eastern European model it is natural to ask then whether some version(s) of the math circle experience could be incorporated into the U.S. cultural norm. Could even more be accomplished?

2009 Purple Comet! Math Meet Results

The 2009 Purple Comet!  Math Meet has completed and the full results are posted here.

Many Metroplex Math Circle attendees participated including the Archimedes’ Successors team which earned an Honorable Mention in the mixed middle school division:

• First Place(tie): Philippine Team A (Mathematics Trainers Guild Philippines), VASS (Longfellow Middle School), All-Asian Social Turndowns (AAST) with 15 out of 15 correct.
• Fourth Place(tie): Indigo 2 (PRIVATE INDIVIDUAL), Indigo 4 (PRIVATE INDIVIDUAL), Calculators (BASIC Homeschools), Indigo 3 (PRIVATE INDIVIDUAL) with 14 out of 15 correct.
• Honorable mentions go to ICAE Gauss was a Boss (ICAE), ICAE Bananas (ICAE), Eagles Rumble (Heritage Christian School), Brookings Home School (Brookings Home School), MyTJPrep (Multiple schools/MyTJPrep), Segimwony (St Mary School), Archimedes’ Successors (Eudaimonia Homeschool Academy), Central Maryland Homeschoolers (Central Maryland Homeschoolers)

Designed by Dr. Titu Andreescu and Dr. Jonathan Kane this contest is very challenging.  The Purple Comet organizers provide coaches with the following counsel:

Coaches: Please encourage your teams that scores below 50% are not uncommon. The problems offered in these meets are of the same calibre as those offered in the top national mathematics exams, and can be quite challenging. We are very pleased to see teams performing as well as they have, and we know they will rise to the challenge and perform even better in the meets to come.

2009 USAMO Highest Ranking Individuals

AMC just announced the highest ranking individuals from the 2009 USAMO:

John Berman	John T. Hoggard High School	Wilmington	NC
Sergei Bernstein	Belmont High School	Belmont	MA
Wenyu Cao	Phillips Academy	Andover	MA
Robin Cheng	Pinetree Secondary School	Coquitlam	BC
Vlad Firoiu	Westford Academy	Westford	MA
Eric Larson	South Eugene High School	Eugene	OR
Delong Meng	Baton Rouge Magnet High School	Baton Rouge	LA
Qinxuan Pan	Thomas S. Wootton High School	Rockville	MD
Panupong Pasupat	Deerfield Academy	Deerfield	MA
Toan Phan	Taft School	Watertown	CT
David Rush	Phillips Exeter Academy	Exeter	NH
David Yang	Homeschool	Walnut	CA

All of these students deserve congratulations.   Its particularly nice to see the achievements of 7th grader,  David Yang.  David was a student of Dr. Andreescu’s AwesomeMath camp last year and was also in the final rounds of the 2009 MATHCOUNTS national competion.

2009 MATHCOUNTS Countdown Round

Watch the Countdown Round LIVE!

The 2009 Raytheon MATHCOUNTS National Competition Countdown Round will air live,  on mathcounts.org! Tune in at 2:00 PM EDT on Friday, May 8th to watch as top Mathletes® vie for the title of 2009 MATHCOUNTS National Champion.

CIE Math Comp 2009

The DFW chapter of the Chinese Institute of Engineers will once again hold their excellent and highly attended math competition for students in 1st through 7th grade.

• When: 06/06/2009. 12PM-5PM.
• Who: Grades 1-7.
• Where: Collin County Community College (CCCC), Spring Creek Campus (2800 E. Spring Creek Parkway, Plano, TX 75075).
• Information: For more details in Chinese or English, please click here.
• Registration: For on-line registration, please visit this page.
• Contact: Borwen Lee, cie2009mathcomp@yahoo.com.

One More Mid Cities Math Circle

While Metroplex Math Circle is over for the season there is one more Mid Cities Math Circle (MC^2) in Arlington next Tuesday night.  Please see more information and contact Dr. Grantcharov through the new site:

http://midcitiesmathcircle.wordpress.com/schedule/

Problem sets from previous session are posted on the some.  Some examples from the last session are below:

Problem 2. Five married couples gather at a party. As they come in and greet each other, various people exchange handshakes but, of course, people never shake hands with themselves or with their own respective spouses. At the end of the party, one woman goes around asking people how many hands they shook, and she gets nine different answers. How many hands did she herself shake?

Problem 4. A cube 3X3 X 3 is made of cheese and consists of 27 small cubical cheese pieces arranged in the 3 X3 X3 pattern. A mouse is eating the cheese in such a way that it starts at one of the corners and eats smaller pieces one by one. After he finishes one piece, he moves to the adjacent piece (pieces are adjacent if they share a face). Is it possible that the last piece mouse has eaten is the central one?

Problem 5. In how many different ways one can place 3 rooks on the cells of 9X2009 chessboard such that they do not attack each other?

USAMO Qualifiers

AMC recently announced the students invited to sit for the USA Mathematical Olympiad.  This is a tremendous accomplishment following exemplary performance on the AMC 10 or 12 and a high score on the AIME.  The qualifiers from Texas are:

Every student representing Texas at the USAMO deserves to be very proud.  However, Metroplex Math Circle is particularly proud that one of our most regular attendees is by far the youngest student on the national list.

Michael Ma, as a fourth grader received a perfect score on the AMC 10 and followed it up with a performance on the AIME that is beyond all but the best high school students.  MMC cannot claim the credit for this terrific success (that belongs to Michael and his family) but Michael does exemplify the hard work and talent that Dr. Andreescu seeks to identify and encourage.

Please join us in congratulating Michael on his continued success.

April 18 – Last Math Circle

Please join us on April 18 for the last Metroplex Math Circle of the Spring 2009 semester.

Dr. Andreescu himself will present some of his favorite problems and then we will have our traditional end of the year celebration.

Most importantly, we want as many students and parents to attend so that we can discuss the future of the Metroplex Math Circle.

Invariants and Knot Theory Recap

Unfortunately, due to state MATHCOUNTS and other activities, many students missed Dr. Razvan Gelca’s excellent talk on Invariants and Knot Theory.  Thankfully Dr. Gelca has made his slides available for these important topics.

You will find several interesting problems and solutions in this first deck:  Razvan Gelca – Invariants1

The second set of slides deals with Knot Theory.  Knot Theory is a good illustration of the importance of pure math and the topics explored through math circles.  For hundreds of years mathematicians explored the various ways that a string or rope could be twisted around itself motivated by little more than intellectual curiosity.  Today, however, we are finding that the principles of Knot Theory are critical to some of the most important applied sciences such as molecular biology.  Razvan Gelca – Knots