Dave Posted April 3, 2003 Posted April 3, 2003 Since the maths forums have been fairly inactive over the past week or so (I think I've only seen three or four posts), I've decided to see if people would like some weekly (or fortnightly) maths challenges that they can solve. The idea runs something like this: 1) The problem is posted in the appropriate forum for the challenge. 2) People send me their solutions. 3) At the end of the week, I say who "won" and post a solution. It's all a bit of fun really, but I think it would put a bit more life into the maths forums here. Another rule (to make it a bit fairer) is that nobody can win twice in a row. I'd also like to see people submitting their own problems (and preferably solutions ) which would be quite nice. Obviously, the person that submitted the problem couldn't enter the challenge. Anyway, this post is just to see what the interest in this would be like. If you've got any suggestions, please post them so it can all be discussed. Thanks.
blike Posted April 3, 2003 Posted April 3, 2003 Sounds great! keep in mind some of us are only in introductory calculus (or havn't taken calc), so it'd be nice for a lot of us if you could diversify the problems
Dave Posted April 3, 2003 Author Posted April 3, 2003 Yeah, my idea (which I failed to point out, sorry) is to make the problems over a diverse area of topics in mathematics. It won't all be simple, but it should be answerable by most people visiting these forums. P.S. clearly answers should be submitted by e-mail, and I'd accept the first correct answer submitted by that person.
ringmaster Posted April 3, 2003 Posted April 3, 2003 YES! Definatly do this. I am exhausting alot of math problem sites. MENSA.org has a pretty good weekly(i think) "work-out" which is also rather challenging, and I used to do them before i started calc. Now I plan to learn Calc 1 over the next 4 weeks, take a test so I can skip it and take calc 2 over the summer, and then the next class after that at college while im a senior in High School. So I should be able to do your calc challenge problems soon.
fafalone Posted April 4, 2003 Posted April 4, 2003 A better format than using e-mail would be to use a dedicated, moderated forum. People would tend to be more inclined to post it here than e-mail the results. We could set it up so that you could control when all the posts appeared, until then they would not be visible to anyone.
Dave Posted April 6, 2003 Author Posted April 6, 2003 Originally posted by fafalone A better format than using e-mail would be to use a dedicated, moderated forum. People would tend to be more inclined to post it here than e-mail the results. We could set it up so that you could control when all the posts appeared, until then they would not be visible to anyone. Yeah, that would be good if it could be arranged. From the "general" (I use the term loosely since only about 6 people have voted) concensus it seems like it might be a good idea, so I'll start gathering some questions up and do a couple of trial runs to get some feedback. So if you have some nice challenges that you'd like to see asked, e-mail them to me at mdave@btopenworld.com
EvilMind Posted April 9, 2003 Posted April 9, 2003 dont even bother, almost 80% of the time forum members do not maximize on the options available to them. there are about 4 people who are regulars in the chat, and i have not seen i new person in the chat for a while. dont waste ur time....
fafalone Posted April 9, 2003 Posted April 9, 2003 Thanks for your support. Apparently attracting new members through this competition is beyond your comprehension. If you are unhappy with the number of members, feel free to spread the word and get more.
Ryoken Posted April 10, 2003 Posted April 10, 2003 heh... Well, it is not like there is a large amount of activity in this section of the forum, so the 'competition' (what about one?) wouldn't affect trafic very much, but it would be cool, which is reason enough for me. I think the best method would be fot e person to submit their account name, the question/answer to Dave, then dave would post the questiona nd people would post possible answers, the first one getting the correct one winning whatever the prose may be... Although ime sure thats exactly what you had in mind and I was a fool to say that.
fafalone Posted April 10, 2003 Posted April 10, 2003 If guests see a math competition with a question they want to have a go at, they'll have to join.
Ryoken Posted April 10, 2003 Posted April 10, 2003 I have a copy of a 11th grade math contest, alas it has diagrams and i have no scanner it is surprising that the math contests are so much 'funner' than in class math tests
EvilMind Posted April 10, 2003 Posted April 10, 2003 Originally posted by fafalone Thanks for your support. Apparently attracting new members through this competition is beyond your comprehension. If you are unhappy with the number of members, feel free to spread the word and get more. that is not the case. i am saying you have more than enough members, but none of them ever take advantages of the services you have.
blike Posted April 10, 2003 Posted April 10, 2003 Originally posted by EvilMind that is not the case. i am saying you have more than enough members, but none of them ever take advantages of the services you have. I second that.
Dave Posted April 10, 2003 Author Posted April 10, 2003 Well, I think I'm going to go ahead with it anyway; clearly it may help get a few more active members here and that's a pretty good reason. The first one I'll post will be in about an hour's time, and it's a pretty nice question that we were given, which is quite tricky to see, so it makes it ideal for this kind of competition.
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