Math problem of the week for university students?

[bob012345]

Looking through the problems of the week for university students it became clear to me at it means math majors, not just any university student because they are way beyond all the math I had even in grad school as a physics and engineering student. Was that the original intent? Will the scope change as PF members come from a broader background?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

CC @Euge

 

[Euge]

Over at MHB, there were those with primarily physics backgrounds who correctly answered the university POTW and math majors who did not. The problems were (and are) not intended solely for math majors, but for everyone with at least some background in undergraduate level mathematics. That being said, many of the proposed problems will be more challenging than standard (in fact, my predecessor used to post Putnam problems for POTW).

Please don't be discouraged -- there are likely to be problems in the near future that you can solve. You can even post partial solutions (with spoiler tags) if you have made reasonable progress but have not figured out how to complete the solution. The community can assist in constructing a full solution. Also, use the opportunity to learn from other solutions learn more mathematics to improve your chances in solving the POTW. I hope this helps!

 

[dextercioby]

Up until last year, we had our moderator @fresh_42 come up with difficult mathematics problems for university level education. Too bad he quit.

 

[berkeman]

Up until last year, we had our moderator @fresh_42 come up with difficult mathematics problems for university level education. Too bad he quit.

It was a wonderful feature of PF for a long time, but what a *huge* amount of work for fresh.