Some mathematicians have more than research and past exams on their pages. Here is a few to get a list started.
And check out the The KaBol the Cool Math Site of the Week, at a site hosted by the Candadian Mathematical Society. Or, for the all--inclusive approach, check out Penn State's Math Lists Page.
The Math in Moscow program was very good for me. I have been interested in Russia since high school, and, therefore jumped at the opportunity to spend a semester there. Simply living in the country and gaining a perspective on the different way of life made the program worth attending. Mathematically, though, the experience was also extraordinary. The program is small (in my semester, there were only ten students), and, therefore, the classes are too. My largest math class had only four students. The lectures are long, and very intense. Each of my classes was three hours per week, and they were either divided into two 90 minute sessions on different days, or simply all three hours together with a 15 minute break in the middle. The administration is considering spreading the classes out more, though, as we complained about the long ones. Being so small, the professors grasp quickly where your mathematical strengths and weaknesses lie, and how you compare to the other students in the class, and they do not hesitate to acknowledge a student?s weaknesses in class. This is simply a cultural difference that I was not prepared for. Grades are posted publicly, and a professor will announce a grade or recommend a tutor to a student without privacy. In this way, it is a much more straightforward system, but it did throw all of us back at first. There was a difficulty acquiring math books in English, so most of our classes had no books and were based entirely on the lectures. This is another complaint that many of us had and that the administration will soon fix. The individualized attention, though, was remarkable. One student had already taken many of the classes offered, so two classes were created solely for him. Also, some of my exams were oral between the student and the professor, which requires a far greater understanding of the subject than would a written exam. I do feel that I grew mathematically in this semester more than any previously.
My time in Russia was the most challenging semester of my education so far. The classes were difficult, the level of mathematics taught was higher than any I had experienced, and there was the challenge of adjusting to a new situation and culture. Despite that, though, I am very glad that I went, and would recommend the program to anyone. The professors and administration care about the students, and want their program to be great. They are determined to maintain the small class sizes, and to cater to the students? needs.
Part of an email from David, while at Budapest Semesters in Mathematics: BSM is outstanding! Highly reccommended for Math majors......Budapest is wonderful! They're using Rudin's Real and Complex Analysis for their Measure theory course and my goodness -- it is one of the most beautiful texts I have ever seen!
A longer piece is is at David's web site.TeX is the essential typsetting, markup language for writing technical documents of all types. To use it, the first thing you need is a text editor with powerful syntax highlighting. If you are a Emacs, or Vim challenged person (like myself) you can use my current personal favorite is jEdit. It has ports to all major platforms, and a powerful set of features. This site was entirely hand editied with jedit. There are a range of other options of course, and I will leave it to you to find them. But do try to avoid WYSIWYG approaches to TeX. While even GNU has one in development, if you write the code yourself, you can structure the document in ways that permit easy changes of appearance and logical strucuture.
After that, you will need an introduction to the language. I don't have an excellent suggestion here (and am looking for one). Try the American Math Society TeX Resources page for a jumping off place. Or, go to the LaTeX Project Home. Or The Comprehensive TeX Archive Network.
Each university can select a team to represent it. Prizes are offered for the top teams, and best individua l test takers. Over the 60 years of the exam, many of the top participants have gone on to bright careers in mathematics and the sciences in general. Several have gone on to win the Nobel prize in Physics.
Each year, Professor Wang runs weekly problem sessions to practice for the Putnam. We are offiereing one credit hour for participation in the practice sessions, by signing up for a Math 4801 course. A history of most of the prize winners is availible as the Mathematical Association of America website.
!The MAA also offers a book of problem solutions. (The authors of this book are no slakers!)
The current competition committee consists of :
Three of these, Granville, Pomerance, and Klosinski, are top numbertheorists. James Prop made it into last semesters Blog with a fiendish self-referential exam. Some of the majors claimed that I was trying to sabatoge their degrees by pointing this out to them during finals week.
Assoc. Dir. Gerald L. Alexanderson
2005
Andrew Granville
2003*
Director Leonard F. Klosinski
2005
Assoc. Dir. Loren C. Larson
2005
Carl Pomerance
2003*
James Propp
2004
Brian Walden
2005