Hodgetts Mathematical Essay Prize competition
This year’s edition of the Hodgetts Mathematical Essay Prize competition, open to all L6th mathematicians, attracted a record 29 entries. The essay could be on any mathematical topic provided it had not already been covered in school, meaning all entrants had to research and write about a topic completely independently. The quality of the essays was high and the Maths Department enjoyed reading about topics ranging from the Banach-Tarski paradox to the role of Bayes’ theorem in law.
All entrants wrote interesting essays and, in so doing, had clearly stretched themselves beyond the constraints of the A Level curriculum. The winning entry, however, came from Marcus P. (L6) who wrote about the mathematics of voting systems and whether any voting system could be fair. His essay discussed the mathematics of systems such as the Condorcet method and instant-runoff voting before setting out some key principles expected of any fair voting system and giving a proof of Arrow’s impossibility theorem, showing how it is impossible for any voting system to satisfy all of these simultaneously. Thomas E.’s (L6th) entry on Gödel’s incompleteness theorems was a very close runner-up.
Well done to all entrants.
Other News