The Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics (HCSSiM) is an American residential program for mathematically talented high school students. The program has been conducted each summer since 1971, with the exceptions of 1981 and 1996, and has more than 1500 alumni.
The program was created and is still headed by Professor David C. Kelly. For a period Professor Don Goldberg was co-director of the program, and at a later period Sarah-Marie Belcastro was co-director.
The program is housed at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, and generally runs for six weeks from early July until mid-August. The program itself consists of lectures, study sessions, math workshops (general-knowledge classes), maxi-courses (three-week classes run by the senior staff members), and mini-courses (specialized shorter classes).
On a typical day, students spend the morning in class, have lunch together with the faculty, and then have several hours to use at their leisure. They return for the "Prime Time Theorem" (an hour-long talk on an interesting piece of mathematics given by a faculty member or a visitor), have dinner, and then spend a few hours solving problems.
Although the entire student body changes every year, HCSSiM has a number of well-established traditions. Some of the oldest of these traditions deal with the repeated use, in mathematical problems, jokes, and lectures, of the number 17 (and its multiples) and the Yellow Pig. These two traditions were started by Professor Kelly, who collects objects with yellow pigs on them and examples of the number 17 in print.
Many students go on to professional careers in mathematics. An occasional publication has resulted from work done at the program. Well-known alumni of the program include two MacArthur Fellows, Eric Lander and Erik Winfree, as well as Lisa Randall, Dana Randall, and Eugene Volokh. Many alumni return to the campus for a few days around Yellow Pig's Day (July 17) of each year. This observance was formalized for 2006 in "Yellow Pig Math Days," which was conducted in observance of 2006 being the 34th offering of the HCSSiM Program (34 being a multiple of 17).
The Summer Studies has been funded in the past by the American Mathematical Society and the U.S. National Science Foundation.
Other math programs have been organized loosely based on the Hampshire Program, including "The Université Mathématique d'Eté" by Daniel Elliott Loeb at SUPAERO 1991 and ENSAM 1992.
Read more about Hampshire College Summer Studies In Mathematics: Yellow Pigs Day, Other Alumni
Famous quotes containing the words hampshire, college, summer, studies and/or mathematics:
“A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always like a cat falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days and feels no shame in not “studying a profession,” for he does not postpone his life, but lives already.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In looking back over the college careers of those who for various reasons have been prominent in undergraduate life ... one cannot help noticing that these men have nearly always shown from the start an interest in the lives of their fellow students. A large acquaintance means that many persons are dependent on a man and conversely that he himself is dependent on many. Success necessarily means larger responsibilities, and responsibilities mean many friends.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“They tell me, Lucy, thou art dead,
That all of thee we loved and cherished
Has with thy summer roses perished;
And left, as its young beauty fled,
An ashen memory in its stead.”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
“What an admirable training is science for the more active warfare of life! Indeed, the unchallenged bravery which these studies imply, is far more impressive than the trumpeted valor of the warrior.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The three main medieval points of view regarding universals are designated by historians as realism, conceptualism, and nominalism. Essentially these same three doctrines reappear in twentieth-century surveys of the philosophy of mathematics under the new names logicism, intuitionism, and formalism.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)