Why does Philoptima limit the number of Faculty?
Philoptima tries to balance the likelihood of any given researcher submitting a winning solution or plan against the number and nature of open Problems and the quality of past proposals. Nothing is more frustrating as a competent researcher than spending considerable effort on a submission only to be repeatedly denied. Such denials argue in favor of a small number of qualified researchers. Equally frustrating to the donor is spending hard-won prize money on an inferior proposal to a posted Problem. We believe that the best solutions or plans are born from a competitive struggle of ideas. Such competition argues in favor of a larger number of researchers. We monitor the dynamic Prize/Solution process and attempt to have three or more competing solutions to any given Problem by the time of the Prize Deadline. When we don’t succeed, we lose fees and we are not happy. In such an instance, we may find a need to expand the number of researchers in a given discipline. On the other hand, bench
