Feeds:
Posts

## January 19, 2013 – Ivan Borsenco – “Exploring the world of Probability”

MIT student and four time International Mathematical Olympiad participant, Ivan Borsenco, will return to the Metroplex Math Circle this week!

Ivan will introduce the classical probability theory. There will be many interesting examples and several unexpected results. Students will solve a few mathematical paradoxes, find out how to build simple probabilistic models, and have lots of fun.

A deep understanding of probability is not only useful for contest preparation, but is critical for anyone planning a career in science or business.

## 2012 IMO Results

It looks like the US team had a strong showing this year with 5 gold medals and 1 silver coming in behind Korea and China.

## February 4, 2012 – Dr. Titu Andreescu – AMC Preparation

The American Mathematics Contest (AMC) is an extremely important contest for any students interested in pursuing a STEM education and career.  Many of the elite universities use AMC scores to sort out the many applicants who easily achieve 800 SAT math scores.

Our Metroplex Math Circle students are particularly fortunate to have access to Dr. Titu Andreescu as they prepare themselves to take the test.  Dr. Andreescu was the director of the AMC and coach of the US International Mathematical Olympiad team, whose members are selected from among the very best performers in the AMC, AIME and USAMO sequence of contests.

Students should make sure that their schools are offering the A version of the AMC 10 and 12 tests on February 7th.  For those students who do not have access to the test at their school or who are homeschooled, Dr. Andreescu will be offering the test at UT Dallas on February 22, 2012.  Please leave a comment below if you would like to register to take the test at UT Dallas so we can order sufficient tests.

The “10″ and “12″ refer to the maximum grade in which the test may be taken, however, there is no lower limit on the age of the participant.  Many of our younger students take it with the goal of improving their performance each year and identifying areas to focus their studies.  One extraordinary elementary student, under Dr. Andreescu’s tutelage, even achieved a perfect score on the AMC 10!

## September 24, 2011 – Joshua Nichols-Barrer – “Modular Arithmetic in Contest Mathematics”

We look forward to seeing old and new friends today at the September 17  session of Metroplex Math Circle.  Next week we look forward to a lecture from Joshua Nichols-Barrer.   Dr. Nichols-Barrer earned his PhD at MIT and is the AwesomeMath Academic Director, a two time IMO silver medalist and a multiple winner of the USAMO.

Here is a description of the session in Dr. Nichols-Barrer’s own words:

Modular arithmetic is an essential tool for properly treating number theory problems in contest mathematics.  While there is far more to talk about than we have time for today, we will extensively cover the foundations of arithmetic mod an integer \$m\$, looking to differences between mod \$m\$ arithmetic and that which we are all familiar with, as well as those things which distinguish arithmetics mod \$m\$ for distinct values of \$m\$.  We will also begin to think about algebra mod \$m\$ should we have the time.

Modular arithmetic is one of the many fields ignored by standard math curricula but critical for success in math competitions or a career in mathematics or sciences.

## 2011 IMO Team Results

Here are the top 10 teams from the 52nd IMO:

• People’s Republic of China
• United States of America
• Singapore
• Russian Federation
• Thailand
• Turkey
• Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
• Taiwan
• Romania
• Islamic Republic of Iran

## 2011 IMO Results

The results are in from the 2011 IMO in Amsterdam.

Congratulations to all the participants.

## Minipolymath3 project: 2011 IMO (via The polymath blog)

Terence Tao used question number 2 from the 2011 IMO to test the group problem solving on the Polymath blog.

This post marks the official opening of the mini-polymath3 project to solve a problem from the 2011 IMO.  I have decided to use Q2, in part to see how the polymath format would cope with a more geometrically themed problem. Problem 2.  Let $S$ be a finite set of at least two points in the plane. Assume that no three points of $S$ are collinear. A windmill is a process that starts with a line $ell$ going through a single point \$ … Read More

via The polymath blog

## 2011 IMO – Day 2 Video

Here is a quick video synopsis of the second day of the IMO in Amsterdam:

## 2011 IMO – Day 1 Video

Here is a video report on the first day of the IMO in Amsterdam: