Richard Paige — Nearly lost in the shuffle of Senior Week and Commencement was a noteworthy announcement out of Goodrich Hall.
Yang Yang ’17 was named the FortKnight of the Year. Again.
Every other week, the mathematics department issues a Problem of the Fortnight that is open to any member of the Wabash community. Submissions are judged both on correctness and elegance. Nods are given for solutions, while the best ones are posted. The person with the most solutions over the course of a year is named the FortKnight of the Year.
To say he’s the best problem solver on campus might be an understatement. Yang has earned the FortKnight distinction four years in a row.
“We don’t keep good records, but I’m guessing no one has done it before,” said Mathematics and Computer Science Professor Robert Foote.
For the physics and mathematics major who earned distinction on comps, the uniqueness of this accomplishment is as appreciated as an elegant solution. To hear him describe it, each problem was 20 minutes of fun.
“It’s funny to think of this as a big deal for me at Wabash,” Yang said. “It’s just interest that drove me to do this. Every time I saw the problem, it was a fun diversion. There are some problems where the formula looks beautiful and once you get it, you get so excited about it.”
Now that he’s moving on to study physics in graduate school at the University of Minnesota, Yang has another problem left to solve – the weather.
“Summers are nice,” he says, “but it’s going to be cold.”
