Math Competition

[Dave]

As some of you might remember, I used to post a few problems every week for people to solve and reply to. This forum was originally used for the purpose, but obviously that's gone to pot a bit

 

I'd quite like to do the same thing again now we have more visitors around. I plan on holding a small competition every 2 weeks. There will be 3 questions at different levels of mathematics: high school, college and university for those interested in some of the higher maths.

 

What I'm really looking for is some help in gathering possible questions. I'll try and do my best to make up questions where appropriate, but sometimes I won't have the time. I'll probably use the forum this time around instead of issueing PDFs, but I'll moderate posts so that everyone can submit their entry.

 

Any suggestions? I'll write a proper rules list eventually

[rakuenso]

college and university are different levels? I say we start it by finding the integral of |x|^-|x| from -infinity to +infinity

 

even though i'm pretty sure there's no algebraic way to solve it

[Dave]

Ah, that'd be the silly US thing again. Over here in the UK, we consider college to be an interim step between high school and university

[Klaynos]

I belive he means UK college 16 - 18 year olds, and university 18+

 

Any specific areas you want questions from? Fourier transforms are always fun got quite a few around here as well as lots of other stuff

[Dave]

Anything that's interesting really. If you've got them, then either e-mail me or send me a PM.

[jcarlson]

college and university are different levels? I say we start it by finding the integral of |x|^-|x| from -infinity to +infinity

 

even though i'm pretty sure there's no algebraic way to solve it

 

 

Well since its undefined at 0 you can't take the integral from -infinity to +infinity

[cosine]

Here's a good source for competition problems:

 

http://www.claymath.org/millennium/

 

 

(Haha, just kidding, I'll try to message you some.)

[BobbyJoeCool]

I still have a couple tests from my high school Iowa State Math Competition (and a power question or two). Would you be interested in those? I mean, part of the thing about those were that you have a time limit on you, but still, they're some.... interesting questions... And I don't know the answers, but I have the questions.

 

EDIT:And some questions are a "you have no calculator" question...

[BobbyJoeCool]

Ah, that'd be the silly US thing again. Over here in the UK, we consider college to be an interim step between high school and university

 

And over in France, college is your senior year of high school, and university is college... (those silly French?)

[jordan]

Well since its undefined at 0 you can't take the integral from -infinity to +infinity

There's ways around discontinuities.

[jcarlson]

by the way dave I PM'd you a problem I think would be good for advanced high school/beginning college students.