Category Archives: Announcements

AMC8 Results, Math Team Announcement, and Upcoming Events!

A big congrats to our top 3 finishers and everyone else who participated in the AMC8!

Also, check out today’s awesome Math Team announcement!

The New England Math League 7th and 8th grade rounds will both take place on Wednesday, March 1st at 10:30am in WB! Every Middle School student is welcome to participate! Just show up! The event is 35 questions. You get 30 minutes and can use a calculator.

The sixth and LAST round of the (High School) New England Math League will take place on THURSDAY, March 23trd in Schoolhouse 25! Anyone at any level of math is welcome to compete! The competition lasts 30 minutes, you may use a calculator, and you must begin before 3:15pm.

Competition Dates 22-23

Here you go! This list will be updated as the year progresses.

EventDate
NEML1Oct 17th, 2022
AMC10ANov 10th, 2022
AMC12ANov 10th, 2022
NEML2Nov 15th, 2022
AMC10BNov 16th, 2022
AMC12BNov 16th, 2022
NEML3Dec 12th, 2022
NEML4Jan 9th, 2023
AMC8Jan 17th, 2023
WBGMCJan 29th, 2023
NEML5Feb 14th, 2023
NEML – 7th GradeLate Feb, 2023
NEML – 8th GradeLate Feb, 2023
NEML – Algebra 1Late April, 2023

Everest, Enlightenment, and Cash: Be like Andrew Wiles and join the Math Team!

This morning I gave an announcement in assembly on why I think everyone should join the Math Team: Everest, Enlightenment, and Cash!

Everest

Everest, enlightenment, and cash

Who wants to see the hardest math problem in the world?

What if I told you everyone in this room could understand the problem?

Let’s get warmed up.

1-Josh-NEW

Who can tell me the answer to any of these questions?

If you had a calculator, could you solve them all?

2-Josh

3,4,5 and 5,12,13 and 7,24,25 are called Pythagorean Triples. How many of them do you think there are?

More than a millennium ago, people started looking for other triples… for higher powered triples with all positive integers. Solutions to equations like these:

3-Josh

As hard as people searched, no one could seemingly find any. But not finding something doesn’t mean it’s not necessarily there. So people kept searching… and searching.

Are you ready to see the hardest math problem in the world?

4-Josh

In 1637 Pierre de Fermat wrote in the margins of a famous book called Arithmetica that he had a proof but it was too large to fit into the margin.

Mathematicians kept looking for a proof. For 50 years, for 100 years… for 300 years.

The search ended in 358 years later in 1995 when Andrew Wiles, a professor at Princeton, completed a proof.

Why? What’s the value? Why did Andrew Wiles devote 7 years of his life to solving a problem that had fascinated him since the age of 10?

Everest: The tallest mountain in the world of math was THERE.

Enlightenment: In the process of creating his proof, Andrew Wiles created who new fields of math that help us understand how the Universe works.

Cash: He has been awarded a tremendous amount of money for his proof. In fact, in 2000, the Clay Institute named seven “Millennium Problems”. A correct solution to any one of the problems results in a $1,000,000 prize. At of today, six of the problems remain unsolved.

If you have any interest in climbing Everest, finding enlightenment, and becoming rich, then….

5-Josh

Join the math team.

2/17: Anyone can show up to participate in the New England Math League. After 4 rounds we are holding a very strong 23rd place out of all 141 teams in New England, and 14 out of 80 in MA. No sign up is necessary. Just show up!

2/22: Come to New York City with us! We have a couple spots left on our bus! Sign up right here!

2/25: Sign up to compete in the American Mathematics Competition. This is the first level competition to find the team that will represent the United States in the International Math Olympiad. Sign up right here!

Remember, you can have it all: Everest, Enlightenment, and Cash.

Lots to do!

Screen Shot 2014-10-18 at 10.14.46 AMThe next math team meeting will this Monday, 10/20 from 2:50 to 3:30pm in Schoolhouse 25. We have lots of fun stuff to go over:

  • HMMT and PUMaC competitions!
  • NEML recap
  • NYC trip!
  • Movie trip!
  • Team jerseys!

Also, everyone needs to fill out the HMMT/PUMaC info survey. Get this done. It’s online right here.