Mathematics/physics major Greg Jones had a good year in 1999. He was a member of the MU mathematics team that captured first -place in the Missouri MAA Collegiate Mathematics Competition. That was a significant competition because it was the first time an MU team had been victorious over Washington University in St. Louis.
Jones went on to win the national student competition sponsored by the Mathematical Association of America at that group's annual, MathFest. Jones then received the first Georges and Genevieve Saab Scholarship in Mathematics.
This year has been even better for Jones. He won a Barry M. Goldwater National Scholarship that provides $7,500 for student fees, living expenses and books. Again he was a member of the MU math team that recaptured its first-place spot in the Missouri MAA collegiate competition. And once again, he took first place in the national student competition at the MAA MathFest at UCLA.
The Mathfest competition is nerve-shattering intense. Students are given one problem. When they finish it, it is checked for accuracy. If the solution is correct, they are given a second problem. If the solution is not correct, they must continue until they get it correct. This process continues through seven questions with a total time limit of 45 rninutes.
In the 2000 competition, Jones was behind a student from Hunter College by several minutes right up until the end. "I thought I might lose," Jones says, "but I was determined to solve the problem that was in, front of me."
Then it was announced that there were people already working on the last problem. Jones was stuck on the combinatorics problem, Number 6, "I quicidy re-counted for Problem 6 and finally got it, but I was in serious trouble since others had already been working on Problem 7 for several minutes before I even got to look at it."
Jones received Problem 7 and realized that this was his lucky day. It was a problem on matrices. "I'm very good at this subject," he says. He solved Problem 7 in less than a minute and was the first to call for the problem to be checked.
There were many possible solutions to the problem, so he had to wait for the moderator to check the answer to see if he had won. If it were correct, he would be the winner, if not, surely one of the other competitors would finish soon and win. Jones' answer had to be put into a programmable calculator.
"It took longer for them, to check my answer than it took for me to do it," he says. It was intense as he anticipated others submitting their answers at any moment. Finally, Jones was declared the winner.
Now Jones, who is also a member of MU's Putnam Team may be facing his greatest challenge as he decides between Princeton University and Caltech for graduate school in physics.
Editor's Note: The student mathematics competition, at MathFest is led by Richard S. Neal from the University of Oklahoma who is known at MU. Signs on the bulletin boards in the Math Sciences Building offer monetary rewards for solutions to math problems. The challenging problems originate from Neal.