Related papers: Mathematical Competitions and Olympiads-Mathematic…
We provide an historical overview of how advances in technology influenced high school and university mathematical competitions in the United States and at the International Mathematical Olympiad. While students are not allowed the usage of…
A newly-generalized problem from a problem initially thought for the Mathematical Olympiad and the methods to solve it.
Mathematics and its relation to the physical universe have been the topic of speculation since the days of Pythagoras. Several different views of the nature of mathematics have been considered: Realism - mathematics exists and is…
In this note some philosophical thoughts and observations about mathematics are expressed, arranged as challenges to some common claims.
The world of mathematics is often considered abstract, with its symbols, concepts, and topics appearing unrelated to physical objects. However, it is important to recognize that the development of mathematics is fundamentally influenced by…
Academic challenges comprise effective means for (i) advancing the state of the art, (ii) putting in the spotlight of a scientific community specific topics and problems, as well as (iii) closing the gap for under represented communities in…
Is speculative mathematics dangerous? Recent interactions between physics and mathematics pose the question with some force: traditional mathematical norms discourage speculation, but it is the fabric of theoretical physics. In practice…
We present the problems and solutions to the 63rd Annual International Mathematical Olympiad.
Mathematicians occasionally discover interesting truths even when they are playing with mathematical ideas with no thoughts about possible consequences of their actions. This paper describes two specific instances of this phenomenon. The…
Science Olympiads are academical competitions with social impact due to the fact that they allow the detection of talent and promote science and critical thinking. In this work we portray the Mexican Logic Olympiad and we describe the…
Practicing mathematicians often assume that mathematical claims, when they are true, have good reasons to be true. Such a state of affairs is "unreasonable", in Wigner's sense, because basic results in computational complexity suggest that…
We re-examine the old question to what extent mathematics may be compared with a game. Mainly inspired by Hilbert and Wittgenstein, our answer is that mathematics is something like a rhododendron of language games, where the rules are…
All sciences need and many arts apply mathematics whereas mathematics seems to be independent of all of them, but only based upon logic. This conservative concept, however, needs to be revised because, contrary to Platonic idealism…
We present the problems and solutions to the 61st Annual International Mathematical Olympiad
The history of the very first mathematical contests for high school students is discussed. The main body of the article is dedicated to the mathematical and scientific contests held in imperial Russia in the XIX century. More specifically,…
Given that Olympic Games held over the past decade each have cost USD 8.9 billion on average, the size and financial risks of the Games warrant study. The objectives of the Oxford Olympics study are to (1) establish the actual outturn costs…
The growing disconnection of the majority of population from mathematics is becoming a phenomenon that is increasingly difficult to ignore. This paper attempts to point to deeper roots of this cultural and social phenomenon. It concentrates…
Several ways used to rank countries with respect to medals won during Olympic Games are discussed. In particular, it is shown that the unofficial rank used by the Olympic Committee is the only rank that does not allow one to use a numerical…
We claim that human mathematics is only a limited part of the consequences of the chosen basic axioms. Properly human mathematics varies with time but appears to have universal features which we try to analyze. In particular the functioning…
Mathematics is an essential element of physics problem solving, but experts often fail to appreciate exactly how they use it. Math may be the language of science, but math-in-physics is a distinct dialect of that language. Physicists tend…