Washington University in St. Louis
      Contact us

      Faculty

      Office Hours

      Mathematics Home Page
 		Mathematics Department
          
Cupples I Hall
           
Undergraduate Program
      Courses

      Majors & Minors

      Calculus Students

      Future Students

Undergraduate Notes

Graduating Seniors and Guests
Open House

The Department will host an Open House for graduating majors, their families and guests during Commencement Week.

It will be held in Cupples I, 1:00-2:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 15 (following the ArtSci Recognition Ceremony at 10 a.m. that morning). There will be food and an opportunity for you and your families to spend time with some of the faculty. 

Majors who are not graduating until August/December 2008 are also welcome if they are "walking through" the May ceremony with their class.

Congratulations to Math Competition Teams
Putnam Competition  The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition was held on Saturday, December 1, 2007.  This nationwide competition consists of a 6 hour exam (12 problems).  Students take the exam as individuals.  Three of the students are designated ahead of time as the school's team, and the team score is the sum of their individual scores.

Congratulations to The W.U team (Jeremy Diepenbrock, Huajia Wang, and Eric Wofsey) which ranked 12th (out of 413 teams from the United States and Canada)

Participants are also assigned individual ranks.  Congratulations to senior Eric Wofsey who placed in the top 100 (out of 3753 contestants).   WU student results also included:
1 additional major in the top 200
1 additional major in the top 300
1 additional major in the top 400, and
9 additional majors at various levels among the top 1000.
In the competitions from 1976-2007, Washington University teams have placed in the "top ten" in 19 of 32 competitions, including eleven "top five" performances.


Missouri MAA Collegiate Mathematics Competition  The 13th  Missouri MAA Collegiate Mathematics Competition was  held Thursday/Friday April 17-18, 2008, on the campus of Missouri State University (Springfield, MO).  Congratulations to our teams which took both first and second place:

 First Place         WUSTL Team B:   Alon Brodie, Igor Konfisakhar, and Huajia Wang
Second Place    WUSTL Team A:   Alex Cloninger, Jeremy Diepenbrock, and Justin Gilmer

Left to right:  Aex Cloninger, Justin Gilmer, Jeremy Diepenbrock,
Igor Konfisakhar, Alon Brodie and Huajia Wang
A total of 36 teams from across the state, representing 15 colleges and universities, took part in the competition.  The contest consisted of two sessions, each with 5 problems, lasting two and a half hours. 

The next Putnam Competition will be held on Saturday, December 6, 2008.  During the fall 2008 semester there will be weekly practice sessions (with free pizza!) in preparation.  It is not required that you attend the practice sessions in order to take the exam, nor that you take the exam if you attend the sessions.
See the Putnam Archive for additional information. There's also a useful Putnam web page maintained at Santa Clara University.  There's also information below about our teams and math competitions in 2006-2007.   Feel free to contact Professor Richard Rochberg (Mathematics) or Professor Carl Bender (Physics) if you have questions.
The next Missouri MAA Competition will be in spring 2009, held on the camnpus of Truman State University.  There is an archive of problems and solutions for the Missouri MAA Competition, as well as an archive of photos.

Summer Research  The department will have some grant money available to offer support to undergrad students doing mathematics research in summer 2008.  Please see Summer REU Support for details.
Undergraduate Math Club: Next Meeting Monday, March 24, 5:15 p.m., in the UG Math Lounge (Cupples I, room 222).  Free Pizza!

Speaker:  Dr. Blake Thornton
               The Mathematics of Craps

 For more information, contact the Math Club advisor: Professor John McCarthy
Math Club Page 2007-2008
 hjelle  spirited1

               Professor Geir-Arne Hjelle talks on Complex Iteration ,
                                 with spirited discussion and followed by pizza                              

For other talks, see the department's Talk List.  Talks before Department Colloquia are usually preceded by refreshments (a "tea"):  majors are always welcome at these events whether or not they want to attend the talk itself.
If you're interested in study abroad in mathematics, you should take a serious look at the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics.
Some of you might also find Math in Moscow of interest.  If you're seriously interested after looking at the web pages, contact Professor Freiwald.  It may be possible to put you in touch with one or more students currently in one of these programs, or who have been in them recently.

Math Circles is an outreach activity to middle school and high school students.  It is part of a nationwide program in which our department participates.  Dr. Blake Thornton is the local sponsor.   Here is an article from the W.U. Record about Math Circles.  Send an e-mail to Dr. Thornton if you'd like to participate or talk with him about the program.