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St. Olaf students win math competition

By Linnae Stole '10
March 26, 2009

For the second time in three years, a team of St. Olaf College math students came out on top at the annual Konhauser Problemfest. Nathan Clement '10, Thomas McConville '09 and Charles McEachern '09 took first place out of 15 teams at the event, which was held this year at Carleton College.

KonhauserProblemfestLG
The traveling trophy for the annual Konhauser Problemfest illustrates the "pizza theorem."
The Konhauser Problemfest is an annual problem-solving competition that started in 1993 in memory of Joe Konhauser, a professor of mathematics at Macalaster College who was also an active problemist. Over a 25-year period he posed nearly 700 "Problems of the Week" at Macalester, and the tradition continues today. The Konhauser Problemfest brings together teams from several liberal arts colleges, including Macalaster, St. Olaf, Carleton, Gustavus Adolphus and the University of St. Thomas. Teams consist of three students who work together to solve a series of 10 problems over a three-hour period.

The St. Olaf team was awarded a trophy, now on display in the math department, that illustrates something called the "pizza theorem." "You start with a circle and pick any point inside the circle," Clement says in describing the theorem. "Now you cut the circle into 8 pieces, centered on that point that you picked. If you make sure that the angles at the center point are equal, then the Pizza Theorem says the following: 'If you pick every other slice, going around the pizza, then the area of these four slices is equal to the area of the other four, no matter how you picked the center point.'"

The Problemfest marks the second time this year that Clement and McConville have placed successfully at a regional mathematics competition. Last fall they took first place out of 72 teams from 28 colleges and universities of the North Central Section of the Mathematical Association of America at the MAA's team competition.

Contact Kari VanDerVeen at 507-786-3970 or vanderve@stolaf.edu.