Bday Problems

Each year I release a set of problems to celebrate yet another year of life and study.

On this page you will find collapsible, hyperlinked headings for each year this Game has run, along with some brief, nested notes on each iteration.

In addition to the yearly commentary, each heading comes with an embedded PDF. Click the ">" button in the menu-bar to open all the headings.

Note that prior to 2024 there were awards for first and second place; hence the duplicate years for some winners.

The heading is the link :>

As is tradition, the prize pool has increased (to $300 this year).

I have collapsed first and second place into a winner-takes-all arrangement (c'est la vie).

Furthermore, there are additional changes to the structure of this Game:

you must now pass the problem set to be awarded the prize money;
you may submit your solutions to the problem set at any point in the future;
if you plagiarise work, I reserve the right to ban you from all subsequent competitions — grim trigger
the problem and solution set will now be courteously supported by MathJaX, TikZ, and my own JavaScript
- the problems can be found here, whilst the PDF can be found here and here (embedded).
- my solutions will be available from the start of 2026; by viewing them you forfeit the prize money
Good luck!

The prize money was \$150 for first place and $100 for second.

ERRATA:

Here is the problem set:

The prize money for this year was \$100 AUD and $50 aud respectively.

Mr. Rajan nobly refused the charity. Sarro Aghrel came first.

Topics informally included Discrete Mathematics, Single and Multi-variable Calculus and Complex Analysis.

This was the first and most green Problem Set. It teetered on the edge of Higher Secondary and Recreational mathematics:

The winner was Aarav Bajaj, by a narrow margin of a single mark.

In second place was an ex-student of mine, Jisu Song.

The prizes were \$50 and $20 respectively.