The hardest problem on the hardest test
3Blue1Brown 3Blue1Brown
6.01M subscribers
15,474,068 views
0

 Published On Dec 8, 2017

A difficult Putnam question with an elegant solution.
This video was sponsored by Brilliant: https://brilliant.org/3b1b
Help fund future projects:   / 3blue1brown  
An equally valuable form of support is to simply share some of the videos.
Special thanks to these supporters: http://3b1b.co/putnam-thanks
Home page: https://www.3blue1brown.com/

Solution to the puzzle mentioned at the end: https://brilliant.org/3b1bindicator/

These videos exist thanks to Patreon:
  / 3blue1brown  

A different write-up of this solution:
http://lsusmath.rickmabry.org/psisson...

1992 Putnam with this problem:
http://kskedlaya.org/putnam-archive/1...

A problem with a similar flavor came up on the 2005 Putnam A6. Give it a try! The solution for that problem, by the way, was written by Calvin Lin, a friend of mine who works at Brilliant. Small world!
http://kskedlaya.org/putnam-archive/2...
http://kskedlaya.org/putnam-archive/2...

Thanks to these viewers for their contributions to translations
Hebrew: Omer Tuchfeld
Korean: tebaioioo

------------------
Animations largely made using manim, a scrappy open source python library. https://github.com/3b1b/manim

If you want to check it out, I feel compelled to warn you that it's not the most well-documented tool, and has many other quirks you might expect in a library someone wrote with only their own use in mind.

Music by Vincent Rubinetti.
Download the music on Bandcamp:
https://vincerubinetti.bandcamp.com/a...

Stream the music on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/1dVyjw...

If you want to contribute translated subtitles or to help review those that have already been made by others and need approval, you can click the gear icon in the video and go to subtitles/cc, then "add subtitles/cc". I really appreciate those who do this, as it helps make the lessons accessible to more people.
------------------

3blue1brown is a channel about animating math, in all senses of the word animate. And you know the drill with YouTube, if you want to stay posted on new videos, subscribe, and click the bell to receive notifications (if you're into that).

If you are new to this channel and want to see more, a good place to start is this playlist: http://3b1b.co/recommended

Various social media stuffs:
Website: https://www.3blue1brown.com
Twitter:   / 3blue1brown  
Patreon:   / 3blue1brown  
Facebook:   / 3blue1brown  
Reddit:   / 3blue1brown  

show more

Share/Embed