Daan Plukker wins 4TU.AMI prize of the 2023 MATH+ Advent Calendar after tight race
Each year, thousands of people compete in the MATH+ Advent Calendar, a digital mathematics competition organised in December by the Berlin Mathematics Research Center MATH+ in collaboration with 4TU.AMI.
From 1 to 24 December, a Christmas-themed mathematical puzzle is published online every day. Each puzzle comes with ten possible answers, exactly one of which is correct. Participants can earn points by submitting a correct answer: 5 points when this is done on the day of publication, 3 points when this is done the next day, and 1 point if the correct answer is submitted on any other day before the start of the new year. Prizes are awarded by drawing lots, where the number of lots corresponds to the number of points acquired by solving the challenges.
In total, 6330 people participated in the 2023 edition of the MATH+ Advent Calender, 3458 of whom are high school students. Traditionally, the lion's share of the participants is German.
Besides competing for the overall prizes handed out by MATH+, the top-scoring Dutch high school student receives a prize sponsored by 4TU.AMI. The competition among Dutch high school students in the 2023 edition of the calendar was very tight: five of them solved 22 out of 24 challenges correctly. The winner, scoring an impressive total of 110 points and beating the two runners-up by just a few points, was:
- Daan Plukker (Heerbeeck College, Best)
Pim van 't Hof (4TU.AMI) travelled to Best to surprise Daan and his class during one of their mathematics lessons. After handing Daan an award certificate and €500 prize, the class was treated to an interactive mathematics talk that replaced their regular lesson.
4TU.AMI congratulates Daan with this outstanding achievement!
