DOCSLIB.ORG

Count Down: Six Kids Vie for Glory at the World's Toughest Math

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Count Down: Six Kids Vie for Glory at the World's Toughest Math Count Down Six Kids Vie for Glory | at the World's TOUGHEST MATH COMPETITION STEVE OLSON author of MAPPING HUMAN HISTORY, National Book Award finalist $Z4- 00 ACH SUMMER SIX MATH WHIZZES selected from nearly a half million EAmerican teens compete against the world's best problem solvers at the Interna• tional Mathematical Olympiad. Steve Olson, whose Mapping Human History was a Na• tional Book Award finalist, follows the members of a U.S. team from their intense tryouts to the Olympiad's nail-biting final rounds to discover not only what drives these extraordinary kids but what makes them both unique and typical. In the process he provides fascinating insights into the creative process, human intelligence and learning, and the nature of genius. Brilliant, but defying all the math-nerd stereotypes, these athletes of the mind want to excel at whatever piques their cu• riosity, and they are curious about almost everything — music, games, politics, sports, literature. One team member is ardent about water polo and creative writing. An• other plays four musical instruments. For fun and entertainment during breaks, the Olympians invent games of mind-boggling difficulty. Though driven by the glory of winning this ultimate math contest, in many ways these kids are not so different from other teenagers, finding pure joy in indulging their personal passions. Beyond the Olympiad, Steve Olson sheds light on such questions as why Americans feel so queasy about math, why so few girls compete in the subject, and whether or not talent is innate. Inside the cavernous gym where the competition takes place, Count Down reveals a fascinating subculture and its engaging, driven inhabitants. 0404 count down BOOKS BY STEVE OLSON Mapping Human History Count Down to u n t dow n Six Kids Vie for Glory at the World's Toughest Math Competition STEVE OLSON Houghton Mifflin Company BOSTON N EW YORK FIRST MARINER BOOKS EDITION IOO5 Copyright © 2004 by Steve Olson All rights reserved For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003. Visit our Web site: www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Olson, Steve, date. Count down : six kids vie for glory at the world's toughest math competition / Steve Olson p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 0-618-25141-3 ISBN 0-618-56212-5 (pbk.) 1. International Mathematical Olympiad. 2. Mathematics—Competitions. I. Title. QA20.3.O47 2004 510'.79—dc22 2003056897 Printed in the United States of America MP 10 98765432 MATHCOUNTS® is a registered trademark of the MATHCOUNTS Foundation, 1420 King St., Alexandria, VA 22314. FOR DIANE OLSON contents Introduction • i PART i • THE PATH TO THE OLYMPIAD 1 Inspiration • 15 2 Direction • 38 PART 11 • ATTRIBUTES 3 Insight • 59 4 Competitiveness • 80 5 Talent • 98 6 INTERLUDE: An Afternoon to Rest • 122 7 Creativity • 126 8 Breadth • 149 9 A Sense of Wonder • 167 PART 111 • RESULTS 10 Triumph • 187 11 Epilogue • 199 Appendix: Solutions and Commentaries • 201 Sources • 211 Acknowledgments • 227 Index • 231 count down introduction On July 4, 1974, a bus carrying eight U.S. high school students wound through the narrow medieval streets of Erfurt, East Ger• many. The students were all a bit nervous. In those days of heightened Cold War tensions, few Americans ventured beyond the Iron Curtain. Just that morning, after an all-night flight from New York City, the students had endured a brusque round of questioning by the East German border police. As they stepped from the bus in the center of Erfurt, beneath the spires of the ca• thedral where Martin Luther preached his first sermons, they felt both isolated and highly visible. They were nervous for another reason. These high school ju• niors and seniors were the first team from the United States ever to compete in an International Mathematical Olympiad. In 1974 the Olympiad was already fifteen years old; the first one had been held in 1959 in Bucharest, Romania. But throughout the 1960s the United States had been reluctant to field an Olympiad team. The Olympiad is a competition for individuals in which gold, sil• ver, and bronze medals are awarded. But unofficially the teams always have added their individual scores and compared them• selves country against country. In this informal contest the Olympiad had been dominated by teams from the Soviet Union and eastern Europe. Even as more teams from western Europe began to compete — Finland in 1965 (finishing last), Great Brit• ain, Sweden, Italy, and France (also finishing last) in 1967 — the 2 introduction U.S. mathematics community had no desire to pit America's best high school students against the world's best. "A lot of people were dead set against it," says Murray Klamkin, a renowned mathematical problem writer who coached the U.S. team from 1975 to 1984. "They thought a U.S. team would be crushed by all those Communist countries." In 1971 the mathematician Nura Turner, from the State Uni• versity of New York at Albany, wrote an article that began to change people's minds. She pointed out that several state-level competitions, established mostly since the 1950s, had laid the groundwork for American participation at the international level. She admitted that a U.S. team might be humiliated in its ini• tial attempts but argued that Americans were tough enough to bounce back. "We certainly must possess here in the USA the strength of character," she wrote, "to face defeat and the capabil• ity and courage to then plunge into systematic hard training to compete again with the desire to strive for a better showing." In 1974 the major U.S. mathematical organizations finally agreed to send a team. Two years earlier the Mathematical Asso• ciation of America had instituted a national exam designed to identify the best high school mathematicians in the country. In the spring of 1974 the association named the top eight finishers on the exam as the members of the U.S. Olympiad team. Eric Lander, who is now one of the world's preeminent ge• neticists and the director of the Broad Institute of Harvard Uni• versity and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was a mem• ber of the team that first year. It was his senior year at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, and Lander was captain of the school's math team. "Math team was great," he says. "About thirty kids met each morning for an hour before school in a fifth- floor room of Stuyvesant High School, and the captain of the team was responsible for running the session. This was before you had databases full of math problems, so the captain of the math team, upon his ascension to office, came into possession of introduction 3 what we called 'the shopping bag.' It contained mimeographed sheets of problems and strips of problems and records of the city math contests for a long time. So the captain of the team would pull problems out of the bag and be responsible for leading the group." When most people think about math competitions, they probably envision a roomful of kids struggling to perform com• plex calculations faster than the next person. But most of the problems in high-level competitions have very little to do with calculations. Solving these problems requires a sophisticated grasp of mathematical ideas, so that familiar concepts can be ex• tended in new directions. The mathematical procedures everyone learns in school aren't enough. Becoming an excellent problem solver demands creativity, daring, and playfulness. A math com• petition is more like a game than a test — a game played with the mind. The structure of an International Mathematical Olympiad reflects the nature of the problems. The size of the teams has changed over time. In the early years each team had eight mem• bers; since 1983 they have had six. But the format has stayed the same. On the first day of the competition all of the Olympians re• ceive a sheet of paper containing three problems, and each com• petitor, working individually, has four and a half hours to make as much progress on the problems as he or she can. The next day they have the same amount of time to solve three additional problems. But the competition doesn't begin when the competitors ar• rive in the Olympiad city, because the assembled team coaches first have to decide which problems will be on the exam. In Erfurt the teams had four days to tour the city and get to know one an• other. "It was fascinating — the single team we most resembled and got along with were the Russians," says Lander. "So we hung out with the Russians a lot and got into all sorts of mischief. 4 introduction We were in East Germany, and the Russians figured at that point that they owned East Germany, so they weren't going to get in trouble. I remember very well going up to the top of the dormi• tory at the school where we were staying, and the Americans and Russians throwing water balloons down on the street. The Rus• sians might not do it back home, but they could do it in East Ger• many." On July 8 the eighteen teams competing in the Sixteenth In• ternational Mathematical Olympiad gathered at a local univer• sity to take the exam. All the worries about the U.S. team's abili• ties had been for naught. Lander and his teammates finished second — just a few points behind the Soviet Union. V This book is first and foremost the story of the Forty-second In• ternational Mathematical Olympiad, which took place in 2001 on the campus of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, right outside Washington, D.C.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • And Should Not, Change Toxic Tort Causation Doctrine
    THE MORE WE KNOW, THE LESS INTELLIGENT WE ARE? - HOW GENOMIC INFORMATION SHOULD, AND SHOULD NOT, CHANGE TOXIC TORT CAUSATION DOCTRINE Steve C. Gold* Advances in genomic science are rapidly increasing our understanding of dis- ease and toxicity at the most fundamental biological level. Some say this heralds a new era of certainty in linking toxic substances to human illness in the courtroom. Others are skeptical. In this Article I argue that the new sciences of molecular epidemiology and toxicogenomics will evince both remarkable explanatory power and intractable complexity. Therefore, even when these sciences are brought to bear, toxic tort claims will continue to present their familiar jurisprudential problems. Nevertheless, as genomic information is used in toxic tort cases, the sci- entific developments will offer courts an opportunity to correct mistakes of the past. Courts will miss those opportunities, however, if they simply transfer attitudesfrom classical epidemiology and toxicology to molecular and genomic knowledge. Using the possible link between trichloroethyleneand a type of kidney cancer as an exam- ple, I describe several causation issues where courts can, if they choose, improve doctrine by properly understanding and utilizing genomic information. L Introduction ............................................... 370 II. Causation in Toxic Torts Before Genomics ................... 371 A. The Problem .......................................... 371 B. Classical Sources of Causation Evidence ................ 372 C. The Courts Embrace Epidemiology - Perhaps Too Tightly ................................................ 374 D. Evidence Meets Substance: Keepers of the Gate ......... 379 E. The Opposing Tendency ................................ 382 III. Genomics, Toxicogenomics, and Molecular Epidemiology: The M ore We Know ........................................ 383 A. Genetic Variability and "Background" Risk .............. 384 B. Genetic Variability and Exposure Risk ................... 389 C.
    [Show full text]
  • And Type the TITLE of YOUR WORK in All Caps
    THE MATH WARS: COMMUNITIES OF MEANING WITHIN THE CRITICS OF SCHOOL MATHEMATICS REFORMS by PATRICIA ANNE WAGNER (Under the Direction of Jeremy Kilpatrick and AnnaMarie Conner) ABSTRACT Over the course of United States history, there have been numerous attempts to reform school mathematics in order to increase student achievement. Although the methods of reform have varied, a common theme has emerged: The reform encounters a political backlash that forces a retreat into traditional instructional materials and methods. This research study examined the beliefs and motivations of those on one side of the “math wars,” a struggle over the goals and methods for school mathematics that originated in the 1990s. In her policy work, Yannow (2000) described individuals reacting to policies as inhabiting communities of meaning: groups in which “cognitive, linguistic, and cultural practices reinforce each other, to the point at which shared sense is more common than not, and policy-relevant groups become ‘interpretive communities’ sharing thought, speech, practice, and their meanings” (p. 10). I drew upon this interpretation to describe the communities of meaning of those who took a reactive position in the math wars; that is, critics of school mathematics reforms. Using this framework in conjunction with Green’s (1971) and Rokeach’s (1968) interpretations of belief systems, I identified three communities of meaning and described their primary lenses for viewing school mathematics and reforms. These descriptions enabled me to infer each group’s motivation for political activism against the reforms. The findings from this study have implications for the political advocates of reforms, educational researchers, and those charged with implementing school mathematics reforms.
    [Show full text]
  • Dean, School of Science
    Dean, School of Science School of Science faculty members seek to answer fundamental questions about nature ranging in scope from the microscopic—where a neuroscientist might isolate the electrical activity of a single neuron—to the telescopic—where an astrophysicist might scan hundreds of thousands of stars to find Earth-like planets in their orbits. Their research will bring us a better understanding of the nature of our universe, and will help us address major challenges to improving and sustaining our quality of life, such as developing viable resources of renewable energy or unravelling the complex mechanics of Alzheimer’s and other diseases of the aging brain. These profound and important questions often require collaborations across departments or schools. At the School of Science, such boundaries do not prevent people from working together; our faculty cross such boundaries as easily as they walk across the invisible boundary between one building and another in our campus’s interconnected buildings. Collaborations across School and department lines are facilitated by affiliations with MIT’s numerous laboratories, centers, and institutes, such as the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, as well as through participation in interdisciplinary initiatives, such as the Aging Brain Initiative or the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. Our faculty’s commitment to teaching and mentorship, like their research, is not constrained by lines between schools or departments. School of Science faculty teach General Institute Requirement subjects in biology, chemistry, mathematics, and physics that provide the conceptual foundation of every undergraduate student’s education at MIT. The School faculty solidify cross-disciplinary connections through participation in graduate programs established in collaboration with School of Engineering, such as the programs in biophysics, microbiology, or molecular and cellular neuroscience.
    [Show full text]
  • Precision Medicine Initiative: Building a Large US Research Cohort
    Precision Medicine Initiative: Building a Large U.S. Research Cohort February 11-12, 2015 PARTICIPANT LIST Goncalo Abecasis, D. Phil. Philip Bourne, Ph.D. Professor of Biostatistics Associate Director for Data Science University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Office of the Director National Institutes of Health Christopher Austin, M.D. Director Murray Brilliant, Ph.D. National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences Director National Institutes of Health Center for Human Genetics Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation Vikram Bajaj, Ph.D. Chief Scientist Greg Burke, M.D., M.Sc. Google Life Sciences Professor and Director Wake Forest School of Medicine Dixie Baker, Ph.D. Wake Forest University Senior Partner Martin, Blanck and Associates Antonia Calafat, Ph.D. Chief Dana Boyd Barr, Ph.D. Organic Analytical Toxicology Branch Professor, Exposure Science and Environmental Health Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Rollins School of Public Health Emory University Robert Califf, M.D. Vice Chancellor for Clinical and Translational Research Jonathan Bingham, M.B.A. Duke University Medical Center Product Manager, Genomics Google, Inc. Rex Chisholm, Ph.D. Adam and Richard T. Lind Professor of Medical Eric Boerwinkle, Ph.D. Genetics Professor and Chair Vice Dean for Scientific Affairs and Graduate Studies Human Genetics Center Associate Vice President for Research University of Texas Health Science Center Northwestern University Associate Director Human Genome Sequencing Center Rick Cnossen, M.S. Baylor College of Medicine Director Global Healthcare Solutions Erwin Bottinger, M.D. HIMSS Board of Directors Professor PCHA/Continua Health Alliance Board of Directors The Charles Bronfman Institute for Personalized Intel Corporation Medicine Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai - 1 - Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D.
    [Show full text]
  • 2011 MTV Video Music Awards”
    Here are the nominees for the “2011 MTV Video Music Awards”: VIDEO OF THE YEAR Adele Tyler, The Creator Title: Rolling In The Deep Title: Yonkers Album: 21 Album: Goblin Director: Sam Brown Director: Wolf Haley Label: XL/Columbia Label: XL Recordings Production Company: Flynn Production Company: Happy Place Producer: Hannah Chandler Producer: Tara Razavi Katy Perry Bruno Mars Title: Firework Title: Grenade Album: Teenage Dream Album: Doo-Wops and Hooligans Director: Dave Meyers Director: Nabil Elderkin Label: Capitol Label: Elektra Production Company: Radical Media Production Company: Little Minx/RSA Producers: Robert Bray, Danny Lockwood Producer: Anne Johnson Beastie Boys Title: Make Some Noise Album: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two Director: Adam Yauch Label: Capitol Records Production Company: Directors Bureau Producer: Samantha Storr BEST FEMALE VIDEO Adele Katy Perry Title: Rolling In The Deep Title: Firework Album: 21 Album: Teenage Dream Director: Sam Brown Director: Dave Meyers Label: XL/Columbia Label: Capitol Production Company: Flynn Production Company: Radical Media Producers: Hannah Chandler Producers: Robert Bray, Danny Lockwood Beyonce Nicki Minaj Title: Run The World (Girls) Title: Super Bass Album: 4 Album: Pink Friday Director: Francis Lawrence Director: Sanaa Hamri Label: Parkwood Entertainment/Columbia Label: Young Money/Cash Money Records Production Company: DNA Production Company: 305 Films Producer: Justin Diener Producers: Kimberly S. Stuckwisch, Michelle Larkin & Keith "KB" Brown Lady GaGa Title: Born This Way Album: Born This Way Director: Nick Knight, Haus of Gaga Label: Streamline/Interscope/Konlive Production Company: Factory Films, Ltd. Producers: Nicole Ehrlich, Steven Johnson BEST MALE VIDEO Cee Lo Green Eminem feat. Rihanna Title: F*** You Title: Love The Way You Lie Album: The Lady Killer Album: Recovery Director: Matt Stawski Director: Joseph Kahn Label: Elektra Label: Aftermath Records Production Company: Refused TV Production Company: H.S.I.
    [Show full text]
  • Interview with Melvin I. Simon
    MELVIN I. SIMON (b. 1937) INTERVIEWED BY SHIRLEY K. COHEN May 24 and June 5, 2005 Melvin I. Simon ARCHIVES CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Pasadena, California Subject area Biology Abstract Interview in two sessions, May 24 and June 5, 2005, with Melvin I. Simon, Anne P. and Benjamin F. Biaggini Professor of Biological Sciences, emeritus, in the Division of Biology. Dr. Simon received his BS from City College of New York in 1959 and his PhD in biochemistry from Brandeis in 1963. After receiving his degree, he was a postdoctoral fellow with Arthur Pardee at Princeton for a year and a half and then joined the faculty of the University of California at San Diego. In 1978, Dr. Simon and his UCSD colleague John Abelson established the Agouron Institute in San Diego, focusing on problems in molecular biology. He (along with Abelson) joined the faculty of Caltech as a full professor in 1982, and he served as chair of the Biology Division from 1995 to 2000. http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechOH:OH_Simon_M In this interview, he discusses his education in Manhattan’s Yeshiva High School (where science courses were taught by teachers from the Bronx High School of Science), at CCNY, and as a Brandeis graduate student working working with Helen Van Vunakis on bacteriophage. Recalls his unsatisfactory postdoc experience at Princeton and his delight at arriving at UC San Diego, where molecular biology was just getting started. Discusses his work on bacterial organelles; recalls his and Abelson’s vain efforts to get UCSD to back a full-scale initiative in molecular biology and their subsequent founding of their own institute.
    [Show full text]
  • Spring 2019 Fine Letters
    Spring 2019 • Issue 8 Department of MATHEMATICS Princeton University From the Chair Professor Allan Sly Receives MacArthur Fellowship Congratulations to Sly works on an area of probability retical computer science, where a key the Class of 2019 theory with applications from the goal often is to understand whether and all the finishing physics of magnetic materials to it is likely or unlikely that a large set graduate students. computer science and information of randomly imposed constraints on a Congratulations theory. His work investigates thresh- system can be satisfied. Sly has shown to the members of olds at which complex networks mathematically how such systems of- class of 2018 and suddenly change from having one ten reach a threshold at which solving new Ph. D.s who set of properties to another. Such a particular problem shifts from likely are reading Fine Letters for the first questions originally arose in phys- or unlikely. Sly has used a party invi- time as alumni. As we all know, the ics, where scientists observed such tation list as an analogy for the work: Math major is a great foundation for shifts in the magnetism of certain As you add interpersonal conflicts a diverse range of endeavors. This metal alloys. Sly provided a rigorous among a group of potential guests, it is exemplified by seventeen '18's who mathematical proof of the shift and can suddenly become effectively im- have gone to industry and seventeen a framework for identifying when possible to create a workable party. to grad school; ten to advanced study such shifts occur.
    [Show full text]
  • President's Report
    Volume 38, Number 4 NEWSLETTER July–August 2008 President’s Report Dear Colleagues: I am delighted to announce that our new executive director is Maeve Lewis McCarthy. I am very excited about what AWM will be able to accomplish now that she is in place. (For more about Maeve, see the press release on page 7.) Welcome, Maeve! Thanks are due to the search committee for its thought and energy. These were definitely required because we had some fabulous candidates. Thanks also to Murray State University, Professor McCarthy’s home institution, for its coopera- tion as we worked out the details of her employment with AWM. The AWM Executive Committee has voted to give honorary lifetime mem- IN THIS ISSUE berships to our founding presidents, Mary Gray and Alice T. Schafer. In my role as president, I am continually discovering just how extraordinary AWM is 7 McCarthy Named as an organization. Looking back at its early history, I find it hard to imagine AWM Executive Director how AWM could have come into existence without the vision, work, and persist- ence of these two women. 10 AWM Essay Contest Among newly elected members of the National Academy of Sciences in the physical and mathematical sciences are: 12 AWM Teacher Partnerships 16 MIT woMen In maTH Emily Ann Carter Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Program in 19 Girls’ Angle Applied and Computational Mathematics, Princeton University Lisa Randal Professor of theoretical physics, Department of Physics, Harvard University Elizabeth Thompson Department of Statistics, University of Washington, Seattle A W M The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has also announced its new members.
    [Show full text]
  • Foundations of Computation, Version 2.3.2 (Summer 2011)
    Foundations of Computation Second Edition (Version 2.3.2, Summer 2011) Carol Critchlow and David Eck Department of Mathematics and Computer Science Hobart and William Smith Colleges Geneva, New York 14456 ii c 2011, Carol Critchlow and David Eck. Foundations of Computation is a textbook for a one semester introductory course in theoretical computer science. It includes topics from discrete mathematics, automata the- ory, formal language theory, and the theory of computation, along with practical applications to computer science. It has no prerequisites other than a general familiarity with com- puter programming. Version 2.3, Summer 2010, was a minor update from Version 2.2, which was published in Fall 2006. Version 2.3.1 is an even smaller update of Version 2.3. Ver- sion 2.3.2 is identical to Version 2.3.1 except for a change in the license under which the book is released. This book can be redistributed in unmodified form, or in mod- ified form with proper attribution and under the same license as the original, for non-commercial uses only, as specified by the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Li- cense. (See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This textbook is available for on-line use and for free download in PDF form at http://math.hws.edu/FoundationsOfComputation/ and it can be purchased in print form for the cost of reproduction plus shipping at http://www.lulu.com Contents Table of Contents iii 1 Logic and Proof 1 1.1 Propositional Logic ....................... 2 1.2 Boolean Algebra .......................
    [Show full text]
  • Mathematics Anxiety in Children with Developmental Dyscalculia Behavioral and Brain Functions 2010, 6:46
    Rubinsten and Tannock Behavioral and Brain Functions 2010, 6:46 http://www.behavioralandbrainfunctions.com/content/6/1/46 RESEARCH Open Access MathematicsResearch anxiety in children with developmental dyscalculia Orly Rubinsten*1 and Rosemary Tannock2,3 Abstract Background: Math anxiety, defined as a negative affective response to mathematics, is known to have deleterious effects on math performance in the general population. However, the assumption that math anxiety is directly related to math performance, has not yet been validated. Thus, our primary objective was to investigate the effects of math anxiety on numerical processing in children with specific deficits in the acquisition of math skills (Developmental Dyscalculia; DD) by using a novel affective priming task as an indirect measure. Methods: Participants (12 children with DD and 11 typically-developing peers) completed a novel priming task in which an arithmetic equation was preceded by one of four types of priming words (positive, neutral, negative or related to mathematics). Children were required to indicate whether the equation (simple math facts based on addition, subtraction, multiplication or division) was true or false. Typically, people respond to target stimuli more quickly after presentation of an affectively-related prime than after one that is unrelated affectively. Result: Participants with DD responded faster to targets that were preceded by both negative primes and math- related primes. A reversed pattern was present in the control group. Conclusion: These results reveal a direct link between emotions, arithmetic and low achievement in math. It is also suggested that arithmetic-affective priming might be used as an indirect measure of math anxiety.
    [Show full text]
  • January 2002 Prizes and Awards
    January 2002 Prizes and Awards 4:25 p.m., Monday, January 7, 2002 PROGRAM OPENING REMARKS Ann E. Watkins, President Mathematical Association of America BECKENBACH BOOK PRIZE Mathematical Association of America BÔCHER MEMORIAL PRIZE American Mathematical Society LEVI L. CONANT PRIZE American Mathematical Society LOUISE HAY AWARD FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO MATHEMATICS EDUCATION Association for Women in Mathematics ALICE T. S CHAFER PRIZE FOR EXCELLENCE IN MATHEMATICS BY AN UNDERGRADUATE WOMAN Association for Women in Mathematics CHAUVENET PRIZE Mathematical Association of America FRANK NELSON COLE PRIZE IN NUMBER THEORY American Mathematical Society AWARD FOR DISTINGUISHED PUBLIC SERVICE American Mathematical Society CERTIFICATES OF MERITORIOUS SERVICE Mathematical Association of America LEROY P. S TEELE PRIZE FOR MATHEMATICAL EXPOSITION American Mathematical Society LEROY P. S TEELE PRIZE FOR SEMINAL CONTRIBUTION TO RESEARCH American Mathematical Society LEROY P. S TEELE PRIZE FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT American Mathematical Society DEBORAH AND FRANKLIN TEPPER HAIMO AWARDS FOR DISTINGUISHED COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY TEACHING OF MATHEMATICS Mathematical Association of America CLOSING REMARKS Hyman Bass, President American Mathematical Society MATHEMATICAL ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA BECKENBACH BOOK PRIZE The Beckenbach Book Prize, established in 1986, is the successor to the MAA Book Prize. It is named for the late Edwin Beckenbach, a long-time leader in the publica- tions program of the Association and a well-known professor of mathematics at the University of California at Los Angeles. The prize is awarded for distinguished, innov- ative books published by the Association. Citation Joseph Kirtland Identification Numbers and Check Digit Schemes MAA Classroom Resource Materials Series This book exploits a ubiquitous feature of daily life, identification numbers, to develop a variety of mathematical ideas, such as modular arithmetic, functions, permutations, groups, and symmetries.
    [Show full text]
  • 2017 Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize for Outstanding Research in Mathematics by an Undergraduate Student
    AMS Prize Announcements FROM THE AMS SECRETARY 2017 Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize for Outstanding Research in Mathematics by an Undergraduate Student David H. Yang was Response from David H. Yang awarded the 2017 Frank It is a great honor for me to receive the 2017 Frank and and Brennie Morgan Prize Brennie Morgan Prize. First, I would like to thank my for Outstanding Research research advisors, Roman Bezrukavnikov and Joe Harris, in Mathematics by an Un- who have deeply influenced how I view mathematics. I dergraduate Student at the have been fortunate to spend much of my undergraduate 123rd Annual Meeting of career in mathematically stimulating environments, in- the AMS in Atlanta, Geor- cluding the vibrant departments of MIT and Harvard and gia, in January 2017. the REU at Emory University, and I am very grateful for the atmosphere that they provided. I would also like to Citation thank many mathematicians who took the time to impart The recipient of the 2017 their wisdom to me, including Clark Barwick, Lawrence AMS-MAA-SIAM Frank and Ein, Pavel Etingof, Dennis Gaitsgory, Rob Lazarsfeld, Ivan Losev, Davesh Maulik, Bjorn Poonen, and Jason Starr. Fi- David H. Yang Brennie Morgan Prize for nally, I would like to thank my friends and family, whose Outstanding Research in support has always been vital to my work. Mathematics by an Undergraduate Student is David H. Yang for his outstanding research in algebraic geometry. Citation for Honorable Mention: Aaron Yang is an author of five papers, with two more in prepa- Landesman ration. Three of his papers have appeared or will appear in Aaron Landesman is recognized with an Honorable the Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society, Journal Mention for the 2017 Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize for für die reine und angewandte Mathematik, and Research in Outstanding Research in Mathematics by an Undergrad- the Mathematical Sciences.
    [Show full text]