Led by faculty math whiz, Mike Hernandez, 20 Heights students competed in Part I of the University of Maryland Mathematics Competition. 3 qualified to sit for Part II, scoring in the top ten percent of all test takers from the state of Maryland.

Below is an example of the types of problems they will be asked to solve.

Let n ≥ 2 be an integer. A subset S of {0,1,…,n − 2} is said to be closed whenever it satisfies all of the following properties:

• 0 ∈ S
• If x ∈ S then n−2−x ∈ S
• If x ∈ S,  y≥0, and y+1 divides x+1 then y ∈ S.

Prove that {0,1,…,n−2} is the only closed subset if and only if n is prime.

Part II takes place November 20th.