Date: Tue Apr 1 1997

From: Michael Moody
Subject: Mudd Math Successes

Faculty and Students at HMC: ************************************************************
NEWS FLASH 1
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The results of the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition are in and HMC's team placed 14th in the nation, out of over 400 schools that participated. Six HMC students scored in the top 200 out of over 2400 students that took the exam; only five other schools had as many students in the top 200 (Harvard, Caltech, MIT, Princeton, Duke and Waterloo were the other schools with as many top-200 finishers). Finishing 14th as a team is a very strong showing and we are very proud of our team's performance. 25 of the 28 HMC students that took the exam scored above the national median score. HMC students giving up a Saturday to take an evil-ly hard math exam (three cheers!) were:

Aaron Archer
RIF Hutchings
Joel Miller
Kevin Watkins
Ranjith Rajagopalan
Kan Yasuda
Brian Johnson
Rob Prestegard
Patri Forwalter-Friedman
David Bunde
Benjamin Elgin
Geoffrey Finger
Dylan Helliwell
Sunmee Jang
Matthew Fluet
William Kalahurka
Dominic Mazzoni
Andromeda Yelton
Peter Boothe
Joey Kimball
Claire Launay
Matthew Sanders
Yinang song
Mihaela Velea
Wun Wong
Jason Yu
Steuard Jensen

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NEWS FLASH 2
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Last February two teams from HMC participated in the annual Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM) competition. This contest involves attacking an open-ended applied mathematical problem over the course of nearly four days. There are two problems to choose from, a discrete mathematics problem and a continuous mathematics problem. Teams may use any resources, other than human resources, to assist them in solving the problem. Over four hundred schools participated. Less than 15% of the teams receive a rating of Meritorious (about 12%) or Outstanding (3%). Both of our teams received a Meritorious this year, which is a significant accomplishment. This year's teams were:

Discrete problem: Joel Miller, Math ('00) Matthew Fluet, Math and CS ('99) Ranjith Rajagopalan, Math and CS ('99)

Continuous Problem: Neil Burrell, Math ('99) Jeff Beck, Math ('97) Rob Prestegard, Math ('97)

Again, Three Cheers to all of these students for their efforts and for the distinction that their success brings to the College.

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Michael E. Moody
Diana and Kenneth Jonsson Professor of Mathematics
Harvey Mudd College
Claremont, CA 91711

Phone: 909 607-3171
Office: 909 621-8023
FAX: 909 621-8465
E-mail: moody@hmc.edu
WWW: http://www.math.hmc.edu/faculty/moody/moody.html