This discipline allows “understanding the world beyond human existence”

“Mathematics is more than doing accounts or procedures, it is a way of understanding the world beyond human existence,” said Emiliano Fernández Almazán, who was recently placed on the honor list of the William Lowell Putnam 2025 Mathematical Competition.

Gold, silver and bronze medalist in the Mexican University Mathematics Olympiad and in the Ibero-American Interuniversity Mathematics Competition (CIIM), he managed to place himself among the 100 best Putnam results representing the Universidad Veracruzana.

In interview with The Day In the context of Pi Day, which is celebrated this March 14, Fernández Almazán pointed out that excelling in this discipline “is not being a genius or anything like that, it is having the right guidance and dedicating time to theory and problem solving.”

Fernández Almazán developed an affinity for mathematics since he was very young, when his father read him books related to the subject and with riddles. From that time he remembers two titles: The devil of numbers y The man who calculated.

When he entered high school he met a teacher who encouraged him to participate in his first competitions. He soon became a gold medalist in the 2024 Mexican University Mathematics Olympiad and obtained silver and bronze medals in the 16th and 17th Ibero-American Interuniversity Mathematics Competition (CIIM), held in Guatemala and Costa Rica, respectively.

In the Putnam 2025 edition, whose results were announced at the end of February, Fernández Almazán was ranked among the 100 best results out of a universe of 4,329 students from 487 institutions in the United States, Canada and Mexico. This is the first time that a student from a Mexican public university has been placed on the contest’s honor list.

Previously, in 2023 and 2024, Mexicans Omar Farid Astudillo and Tomás Cantú appeared on this Putnam honor list, although both did so representing the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

For Fernández Almazán, the key to standing out in this type of calls has been to delve deeper into mathematical theories and encourage creativity through constant problem solving.

“When you face a problem in a competition, you can identify certain patterns or ideas that you had seen before, and from there, propose a strategy to solve it,” he explained.

In order for more young people to become interested in mathematics, he considered it essential to change the way it is taught and avoid separating it from other areas of knowledge such as literature, music or art.

“I see many young people pressured to be good at mathematics, and that should not be like that. Intelligence comes in many forms and they are all equally important,” he said.

Currently, Fernández Almazán is a coach at the Mexican Mathematics Olympiad, where he accompanies other young people in their preparation for this type of initiatives. In the next year and a half he plans to finish his bachelor’s degree and then pursue a master’s degree in the area of ​​probability.