Mattie Williams may have looked as if she was doodling as she drew dozens of tiny rectangles in her notebook, but she was hard at work on the problem, which was taken from the American Mathematics Competitions, a contest series known for its difficulty.
She also met people with similar abilities and interests and won first prizes in regional and national mathematics, physics, and chemistry contests.
The Professor wins a contest in a mathematics magazine and waves away congratulations, saying he just "peeked in God's notebook".
The money surely figured in the school's entry into the contest, said Bill Walsh, a mathematics teacher who brought the students pizza for dinner, but was otherwise not permitted to be in the room, per contest rules.
The organization's textbooks have been used by tens of thousands of students, including many winners of major national contests like MATHCOUNTS and the American Mathematics Competitions.
Now, researchers report that chimps are also better than humans in simple contests based on game theory a form of mathematics that deals with figuring out the best strategy when faced with a competitive situation.
An Algebra Fantasy Miami Union Academy, a private school in Florida, won $1,000 in a national fantasy football contest for students and teachers sponsored by Fantasy Sports and Mathematics.
The second prepares us well to take part in the real business of mathematics, "the most social of the sciences," according to Stanford professor (and former contest superstar) Ravi Vakil.
The annual contest, which does not rank the five winners, draws nearly 3,000 of mathematics students from the United States and Canada.
