Duluth
A short end-of-year unit containing open problems I solved at the Duluth REU.
Duluth is a miscellaneous unit consisting of problems solved by Evan at the Duluth REU. Its problems are extremely difficult due to the fact that they are more akin to research problems (which they once were) than anything in the realm of olympiads.
Accordingly the use of a computer and substantial background reading is essentially required if you intend to make any progress.
Its problems are mainly combinatorial in nature.
Evan has described this as the hardest unit, but has also stated that it's "not a real serious unit". Hence it should be chosen with this in mind.
Due to its nature, Duluth is only available at the Z level.
Background Information
Duluth is unique in how it provides its background information. Students are directed towards two preprints:
Along with a blog post by Evan:
Each of these resources only pertains to 1 of the 4 problems in the unit.
Oddities
This unit bears many oddities:
- Completion only needs 1 club
- There are only 5 problems
- Every problem is a 9-club
Trivia
Here's some trivia pertaining to this unit:
- A special case of problem 5 was proposed for USA TST 2018/3 by Evan
- This unit holds the record for the least number of submissions
- Only 2 of this unit's 5 problems have an ARCH entry, and they are Problem 1 and Problem 2.