The competition began in 1938 and is designed to stimulate a healthful rivalry in mathematical studies in the colleges and universities of the United States and Canada. It exists because Mr. William Lowell Putnam had a profound conviction in the value of organized team competition in regular college studies. Mr. Putnam, a member of the Harvard class of 1882, wrote an article for the December 1921 issue of the Harvard Graduates' Magazine in which he described the merits of an intellectual intercollegiate competition. To establish such a competition, his widow, Elizabeth Lowell Putnam, in 1927 created a trust fund known as the William Lowell Putnam Intercollegiate Memorial Fund. The first competition supported by this fund was in the field of English and a few years later a second experimental competition was held, this time in mathematics between two institutions. It was not until after Mrs. Putnam's death in 1935 that the examination assumed its present form and was placed under the administration of the Mathematical Association of America.
The competition is open only to regularly enrolled undergraduates, in colleges and universities of the United States and Canada, who have not yet received a college degree. No individual may participate in the competition more that four times. An eligible entrant who is also a high school student must be informed of this four time limit.
A college or university with at least three registered entrants obtains a team rank through the positions achieved by three designated individual contestants.
No collaboration or outside assistance is permitted during the examination. Each contestant, even if designated as a team member, must work independently on the examination questions.
The examination will be constructed to test originality as well as technical competence. It is expected that the contestant will be familiar with the formal theories embodied in undergraduate mathematics. It is assumed that such training, designed for mathematics and physical science majors, will include somewhat more sophisticated mathematical concepts than is the case in minimal courses. Thus the differential equations course is presumed to include some references to qualitative existence theorems and subtleties beyond the routine solution devices. Questions will be included that cut across the bounds of various disciplines, and self-contained questions that do not fit into any of the usual categories may be included. It will be assumed that the contestant has acquired a familiarity with the body of mathematical lore commonly discussed in mathematics clubs or in courses with such titles as "survey of the foundations of mathematics." It is also expected that the self-contained questions involving elementary concepts from group theory, set theory, graph theory, lattice theory, number theory, and cardinal arithmetic will not be entirely foreign to the contestant's experience.
Each problem is graded on a basis of 0 to 10 points. All the necessary work to justify an answer and all the necessary steps of a proof must be shown clearly to obtain full credit. Some partial credit may be given, but only when a contestant has shown significant and substantial progress toward a solution.
Prizes will be awarded to the departments of mathematics of the institutions with the five winning teams. In addition, there will be prizes awarded to each of the members of these teams. The five highest ranking individuals and to each of the next twenty highest ranking contestants.
The trustees of the Putnam Fund also will award at Harvard University or at Radcliffe College the annual William Lowell Putnam Prize Scholarship to one of the Putnam Fellows. This scholarship is available either immediately or on completion of the undergraduate course of the successful candidate and carries a value of up to $12,000 plus tuition at Harvard.
Institutions throughout the United States and Canada are encouraged to offer fellowships to high ranking contestants in the competition.
The Elizabeth Lowell Putnam Prize will be awarded periodically to a woman whose performance on the Competition has been deemed particularly meritorious. This prize would be in addition to any other prize she might otherwise win. Women contestants, to be eligible for this prize, must specify their gender.
| Team | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harvard | 13 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 24 | MIT | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3.5 | 5.5 | 18 | Princeton | 0 | 5 | 2 | 6 | 4 | 17 |
| Caltech | 6 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 15 | Waterloo | 1 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 13 | Washington | 3.5 | 4.5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 9 | Chicago | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 9 | Yale | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 8 | Toronto | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 4 | Rice | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | UCBerkeley | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | Stanford | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 4 | UCDavis | .5 | 1.5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | Michigan | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | Duke | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | Michigan State | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | Case Western Reserve | 1 | 0 | 0 | .5 | .5 | 2 | Cornell | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | British Colombia | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | Maryland | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | Oberlin | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | UCLA | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | Miami, Ohio | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | Harvey Mudd | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | Carnegie Mellon | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | Illinois IT | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | Swarthmore | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | Kansas | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
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