Twenty-one UMass Lowell students competed in the 2016 William Lowell Putnam Mathematics Competition on Saturday, December 3. The competition took place concurrently throughout the US and Canada. Last year 4275 students students from 554 colleges and universities competed participated. There were two 3 hour sessions, each with six problems. As usual, the problems were tough. The consensus of students at the end was that this problem was one of the easiest:

Suppose that S is a finite set of points in the plane such that the area of triangle ABC is at most 1 whenever A, B, and C  are in S. Show that there exists a triangle of area 4 that (together with its interior) covers the set S.

 

Thanks to the Honors College for providing refreshments for the students on the day of the event.

Results are normally announced in late March.