Bernoulli Competition

A maths competition in Switzerland

“Bernoulli competition class” at the center for the spring semester

The second “Bernoulli competition” took place on Monday June 3, 2024, from 13:15 to 17:00 in room CM 1 105.

As in 2023, the top ~4 scores from the Bernoulli competition had the opportunity to compete at the IMC in the Bernoulli team.

Class description:

This is a course on problem-solving strategies in mathematics, aimed at bachelors and masters students. While university courses typically focus on the development of “theory”, the accent here is on creative out-of-the-box applications of classical textbook theorems. We discuss Putnam-style problems, with the specific goal to help students prepare for the Bernoulli competition. Experience with high school olympiads is helpful but is not a prerequisite.

The course is for bachelor and master students. This course does not carry formal credits.

Lectures were taught by Kaloyan Slavov.

Kaloyan completed his bachelors at Harvard, his masters at Cambridge, and his PhD at MIT. His research in arithmetic algebraic geometry is focused on varieties over finite fields. Since 2015, Dr. Slavov has been the director of the ETH Math Youth Academy – an outreach program of the Department of Mathematics at ETH, aimed at talented high school students.

Colin Sandon will also teach lectures on the Putnam competition problems.

Colin completed his bachelors/master at MIT and his PhD at Princeton. Colin Sandon was a gold IMO and Putnam Fellow. His research is in discrete mathematics, probability, theoretical computer science, theoretical machine learning. Since 2023, he is a scientist in the Mathematics Institute and IC School at EPFL.

2023

On the 5th of June 2023, the Bernoulli Center for Fundamental Studies launched a new maths competition for undergraduate students in Switzerland.

The goal of the competition is to promote the development of mathematical and problem solving skills in a fun environment, where students from different disciplines and areas of Switzerland can interact among themselves and with the researchers of the Bernoulli Center.

5 students to represent EPFL at IMC

On this first edition of the Bernoulli competition, covering only EPFL, we selected the top 5 scoring students who will represent EPFL at the upcoming International Mathematics Competition in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria.