Did anybody here take the Putnam exam today? I took it for the first time. I didn't do as well as I expected, but I think I got three solved completely (A1, B1, B2) and some partial work on two others (the determinant one and the finite abelian group one--I don't remember the problem numbers, though). But I've been told never to expect partial credit, so it looks like I can expect a score of 30, which is good but nothing to put on a resume.

I took it for the first time too. I think that I got A1 and B123. I started work on the finite abelian group one too, but I'm not sure how close I was to getting anywhere. How did you go about that problem? I tried using the fundamental theorem of finitely generated abelian groups, but it was a bit messy. Maybe there is a cleaner way?

I tried using it as well but was ultimately unable to see a definitive conclusion anywhere. My knowledge of finitely generated abelian groups is unfortunately limited, as the abstract algebra course I took didn't cover them.

I liked the one about jumping across the real axis, but I realized today that maybe the problem allowed jumps from right to left. When I solved it, I assumed the jumps were only left to right and wrote the total cost as an upper Riemann sum for x^2. I got the interval (1/3,1] for the possible total costs from 0 to 1.

Was B3 the problem about the set of rational numbers? If so, how did you do that one? I felt like I should have been able to get that one, but didn't see the trick.

It looks like the problems and solutions are now up here.

After seeing the solutions, the three problems I thought I solved I did indeed solve, but my solutions may not have been entirely up to their standards of rigor. I noticed a few minor points that I didn't explicitly check in my solutions.

Edit: this also shows that I completely misremembered which problem was the one about the set of rational numbers.

Dang, you had my hopes up that this would have something to do with Hilary Putnam (Philosopher of Science).

Im doing theproblems out right now. A-1, and B-1 are trivial. Dunno about the rest, the 1's are usually trivial anyhow.

Trivial? They're certainly usually easier than the rest (and they were this time around), but "trivial" is not exactly the word I would use.