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UNO Undergraduate Math Student Activities

In addition to their normal class load and other outside activities, UNO mathematics students have found time to participate in two important activities.

Math Club

By the time this newsletter goes to print, the UNO Math Club should be an official UNO organization. As of the first of October, the constitution is in the final stage of being approved. The president of Math Club is Aaron Becker and the faculty sponsors are Griff Elder and Judy Downey. The main activities of the Math Club this past year have included listening to speakers and solving interesting math problems. On September 26, 2001 the club was once again pleased to listen to Dr. Todd Munson`s (UNO graduate in Mathematics/Computer Science) talk about his work in optimization at Argonne National Laboratory

POW! - Math students attack interesting problems

The problem of the week, POW Contest has continued to be quite successful. In the spring semester 2001, twenty students submitted one or more correct solutions. Cash prizes were awarded to top scorer Andrew Gacek who correctly solved 12 of the 14 problems during the semester and to Derek Boeckner and Hing Lim Chan who each solved 9 of the 14 problems. Examples of two of the problems given in the spring semester are given below. Faculty members who have submitted and graded problems include: Griff Elder, Judy Downey, Dora Matache, Valentin Matache, Andrzej Roslanowski and John Maloney. Andrzej Roslanowski and Dora Matache have been responsible for keeping the problem of the week available on the Math Department web-site.

Problem 1 (2 students submitted correct solutions)
A cow is tied to a silo of radius r by a rope just long enough to reach the opposite side of the silo. (Clearly the length of the rope must be half the circumference of the silo.) Find the area available for grazing.

Problem 2 (12 students submitted correct solutions)
For any positive integer k, let f₁(k) denote the square of the sum of the digits of k. For n> 2, let f_n(k)=f₁(f_n-1(k)). Find f₂₀₀₁(11).

Mrs. Judy Downey

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Department of Mathematics Web Page
2001-11-29