Congrats to the '17 Williams Football team on defeating Amherst and going 6-3.

Congrats to Williams College for winning the Directors' cup again, we're now 20 of 22.

New athletics facilities dedicated Saturday October 11th; many math majors among the athletes, pictures and news here.

One may wonder why the contest page begins with a nod to more standard sports. For years the results of the Green Chicken contest have been announced at the football game (if we have a home game that day). Many people were curious about why this happens. Dick Quinn, Associate Director of Communications for Sports Information, said it best: If you keep score and mention Williams, I care! To me, this exemplifies what makes Williams so unique and special, this powerful sense of community. --SJMiller
 

Weekly math puzzle night dinners are Mondays at 6pm in Dennett in Mission.

Green Chicken Contest: Saturday, October 28, 2017. (click here for motivational music)

The 40th Green Chicken Competition was hosted by Middlebury College on Saturday, October 28th. Ten Williams College students participated and successfully defended the Green Chicken. The top scorers in the Williams College team were: Ian Banta, Will Howie, Markus Feng, Michael Curran, and Richard Wu (picture here). The upperclassmen returned and led Williams to a successful defense of the Green Chicken in 2014, 157 to 109 (led by John Bihn, Sam Donow and Granger Carty; exam and solution here, pictures here). In 2013 no seniors or juniors participated for Williams, but fortunately our school has depth! Our all frosh/soph team of Philip Brockman, David Burt, Sam Donow and Ben Kaufman stepped up and retained the Green Chicken in another tight match, defeating Middlebury 165 to 142 (exam here, solutions here, and picture here). In 2012 we retained the chicken 125 - 118, with an all underclassman team of Jack Bequeaith, Sam Donow, Jared Hallett and Samantha Petti: picture here.

MATH COMPETITION NEWS:   Over 2% of the campus took the Putnam in 2013! Remote VirginiaTech math competition: Saturday 9-11am (email sjm1@williams.edu)

Green Chicken Announcement: The annual Williams - Middlebury Green Chicken Math is usually in October / November. As the name suggests, we do math problems and whichever team has the higher score gets the Green Chicken. There are problems at all levels, interesting discussions and of course food (hopefully not green chicken, but they choose the menu this year). Related to this and the Putnam (early December) we weekly meet to discuss math puzzles and problems. Currently we meet at Dennett Private Dining Room in Mission on Mondays from 6 to 7pm (if you don't have a meal plan we can guest you in).

Good problems to look at (for now) are from the U of I practice Putnam exams, U of I math contests, and of course last year's Putnam exam. For the last few meetings, I've brought in some problems no one has looked at and we've brainstormed together.

Check out the blog at:  http://blogs.williams.edu/greenchicken    

Summer REU (research experiences for undergraduates) links: http://www.ams.org/employment/reu.html and http://www.maa.org/students/reustuff/pages/reu.html and  http://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/list_result.cfm?unitid=5044.

PUTNAM STRATEGIES (work in progress -- help appreciated!): click here.

PUTNAM / Problem Solving Independent Study: click here for the homepage.

For more information, contact Professor Miller at sjm1 AT williams.edu.

Previous Contests        Useful Links        Pictures        Contact Info        History        Results        Motivational Music

Previous Contests and related exams / riddles (thanks to F. Zhu for posting)

• Other exams: USA and International Olympiad 2006-2007 (edited by Zuming Feng Yufei Zhao: warning: MUCH harder).
• Steve Miller's riddles page.

Useful links

• Putnam Exam: Problems from 1985 to 2007, solutions from 1995 to 2007; additional problems starting from 1975 are here.
• Useful books:
  • Peter D. Schumer, Mathematical Journeys
  • Kiran S. Kedlaya, Bjorn Poonen, and Ravi Vakil, The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition problems and solutions: 1985 - 2000
  • Gerald L. Alexanderson, Leonard F. Klosinski, Loren C. Larson, The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition problems and solutions: 1965 - 1984
  • Andrew M. Gleason, R. E. Greenwood, Leon M. Kelly, The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition problems and solutions: 1938 - 1964
  • Martin Aigner, Günter M. Ziegler, and K.H. Hofmann, Proofs from THE Book
• Proofs by Induction
• The arithmetic-geometric mean inequality

Pictures

• Article on the Green Chicken by the Boston Globe
• Green Chicken (circa 2008, thanks to Dick Quinn)
• Brown Chicken (thanks to the Jeromes and some wedding guest)
• 2008 Contest
• 2009 Contest
• 2010 Contest
• 2012 Contest
• 2013 Contest    (including a nice sketch of the Green Chicken by Sarah Pike)
• 2014 Contest

Contact information: Steven J Miller (Steven.J.Miller AT Williams.edu)

Articles about the green chicken

• Willipedia: History of the Green Chicken Contest       
• North Adams Transcript article: November 22nd, 2000

• click here for the story about the 2010 win from our Athletics Department's homepage!

Results of previous competitions

Previous Contests        Useful Links        Pictures        Contact Info        History        Results

2013: Winning Williams Team: Philip Brockman, David Burt, Sam Donow and Ben Kaufman; Faculty Advisors: Michael Biro, Ed Hansen, Steven Miller and Mihai Stoiciu.
2013 Participants: Phillip Brockman, David Burt, Sam Donow, Mary Gong, Ben Kaufman, Alexander Kastner, Ryan Kwon, Zander Majercik, Gabriel Ngwe, Dylanger Pittman and Sarah Wu.

2012 top scorers: Jared Hallett, Samantha Petti, Jack Bequeaith and Sam Donow.