{"id":3030,"date":"2017-05-23T18:03:35","date_gmt":"2017-05-23T18:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/?p=3030"},"modified":"2017-05-23T18:04:46","modified_gmt":"2017-05-23T18:04:46","slug":"the-best-problem-solver-on-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/2017\/05\/23\/the-best-problem-solver-on-campus\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best Problem Solver on Campus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Paige<\/em> — Nearly lost in the shuffle of Senior Week and Commencement was a noteworthy announcement out of Goodrich Hall.<\/p>\n

Yang Yang \u201917 was named the FortKnight of the Year. Again.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Four-time FortKnight of the Year Yang Yang ’17.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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.<\/p>\n

To say he\u2019s the best problem solver on campus might be an understatement. Yang has earned the FortKnight distinction four years in a row.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t keep good records, but I\u2019m guessing no one has done it before,\u201d said Mathematics and Computer Science Professor Robert Foote.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s funny to think of this as a big deal for me at Wabash,\u201d Yang said. \u201cIt\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now that he\u2019s moving on to study physics in graduate school at the University of Minnesota, Yang has another problem left to solve \u2013 the weather.<\/p>\n

\u201cSummers are nice,\u201d he says, \u201cbut it\u2019s going to be cold.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Paige — Nearly lost in the shuffle of Senior Week and Commencement was a noteworthy announcement out of Goodrich Hall. Yang Yang \u201917 was named the FortKnight of the Year. Again. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/05\/Yang_2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3030"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3038,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3030\/revisions\/3038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}