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USA tops International Math Olympiad for first time in 21 years

washingtonpost.com

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Re: USA tops International Math Olympiad for first time in 21 years

#51

Post by qmalxp »

overpaidgoogler wrote: post #10
helmett wrote: post #4

congratulation...I see a hedge fund career for many

I hope not. When I did math Olympiads (including the IMO) I was presented with a false dichotomy of pure math or finance. This is really unfortunate because finance in general does not use very deep math. A tiny number of people might use SDEs but by now the techniques are standard and boring anyway. Furthermore, even mainstream economists doubt that this sort of finance has positive externalities. The amount of reso…

Probably doesn't need to be said here, but I would also add in: Don't neglect computer science.

Re: USA tops International Math Olympiad for first time in 21 years

#52

Post by gweinberg »

enimodas wrote: post #9

I looked a bit at the gender distribution for the gold and silver medalists, I would guess only 1 in 10-20 is a girl, most seemed to be from the eastern bloc countries.

Gender distribution, yes, that's what stands out. Aside from the gender imbalance, the US team looks pretty much like a typical slice of America, and the top teams are pretty much randomly scattered over the globe.

Re: USA tops International Math Olympiad for first time in 21 years

#53

Post by DanBC »

Tinyyy wrote: post #39
booop wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't believe the audacity of Po-Shen Loh to send a team exclusively of boys to the IMO. When you have to select 6 team members how can you NOT select at least 1 female? This flies in the face of all the outreach work people have been doing to get more girls into STEM, and this victory will only discourage them. It appears the top 3 teams are all 100% boys. I'm delighted that this is currently the top comment here.…

This guy is being sarcastic, I don’t really understand the down votes. Maybe that’s just the way it is over here.

It's a pointlessly baity answer and deserves downvoting.

Re: USA tops International Math Olympiad for first time in 21 years

#54

Post by droopyEyelids »

calibraxis wrote: post #40
booop wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't believe the audacity of Po-Shen Loh to send a team exclusively of boys to the IMO. When you have to select 6 team members how can you NOT select at least 1 female? This flies in the face of all the outreach work people have been doing to get more girls into STEM, and this victory will only discourage them. It appears the top 3 teams are all 100% boys. I'm delighted that this is currently the top comment here.…

You forgot the Men's Rights Advocates and Gamergate brigades which immediately show up with posts like yours. (And send death threats to women posters and their families. http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/12/4693710/the-end-of-kindnes... )

Please just call them bigots, don't let them choose the name we call them.

Re: USA tops International Math Olympiad for first time in 21 years

#55

Post by tokenrove »

Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #44
RA_Fisher wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tests are written by people and their biases recognized or unrecognized will end up in tests. What about the way math is taught? Or the perceptions of gender differentials in math? I'm thankful that I have the privilege of not being told that my gender was a handicap for my field (statistics).

How could mathematical tests be biased? I mean, math is math is math. What would a non-biased math test even look like?

You might find the results summarized in Sian Beilock's book "Choke" of interest.

Re: USA tops International Math Olympiad for first time in 21 years

#56

Post by RA_Fisher »

Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #49
RA_Fisher wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One simple way, just as a contrived counter-example are gendered questions or questions that assume gendered cultural capital.

I'm not sure what that would look like. I mean whatever ornaments are in the word problem, the thing that matters is the math underneath. You seem to think female maths enthusiasts will get distracted by "gendered" ornamentation and find themselves unable to see the math underneath - which itself seems like an oddly sexist idea. Do you honestly think if we printed the tests on pink paper and made all the word problem…

Look carefully at the role of women in the headline photo, and you might see it. They're there only to be looked at, to adorn the men. This is a pretty basic and common representation of the reasons I believe women tend to be under-represented in situations like this.

Re: USA tops International Math Olympiad for first time in 21 years

#57

Post by blahblah3 »

RA_Fisher wrote: post #42
fijal wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You usually send them based on performance in national comp, so there is no subjective selection, you just have to make it to top 5

Tests are written by people and their biases recognized or unrecognized will end up in tests. What about the way math is taught? Or the perceptions of gender differentials in math? I'm thankful that I have the privilege of not being told that my gender was a handicap for my field (statistics).

"Tests are written by people and their biases recognized or unrecognized will end up in tests"

Honestly I have an extremely hard time imagining how math exams are gender biased. Have you even taken a look at this year or past imo's? You're speaking completely hypothetically and it sounds like nonsense.

Here is problem 2: Determine all triples (a,b,c) of positive integers such that each of the numbers ab-c,bc-a,ca-b is a power of 2.

As for: "perceptions of gender differentials in math" , sure that should be worked on. But it is not the fault of the contest organizes or team selectors who uses a series of objective exams and scores to determine the team members.

Re: USA tops International Math Olympiad for first time in 21 years

#58

Post by pervycreeper »

RA_Fisher wrote: post #46
Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could mathematical tests be biased? I mean, math is math is math. What would a non-biased math test even look like?

One simple way, just as a contrived counter-example are gendered questions or questions that assume gendered cultural capital.

>gendered questions or questions that assume gendered cultural capital

Q. Prove Bob has a winning strategy against Alice.

A. The Patriarchy! QED

7/7

Edit: Seriously, what could that even mean?

Re: USA tops International Math Olympiad for first time in 21 years

#59

Post by RA_Fisher »

blahblah3 wrote: post #57
RA_Fisher wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tests are written by people and their biases recognized or unrecognized will end up in tests. What about the way math is taught? Or the perceptions of gender differentials in math? I'm thankful that I have the privilege of not being told that my gender was a handicap for my field (statistics).

"Tests are written by people and their biases recognized or unrecognized will end up in tests" Honestly I have an extremely hard time imagining how math exams are gender biased. Have you even taken a look at this year or past imo's? You're speaking completely hypothetically and it sounds like nonsense. Here is problem 2: Determine all triples (a,b,c) of positive integers such that each of the numbers ab-c,bc-a,ca-b i…

Sure, but I doubt the same is true for all of the tests and educational materials that preceded this particular test. Or, or perhaps the teachers. Women are commonly beat down and told they suck and are inferior to men in STEM areas or tokenized or marginalized. All I'm asking for is that we examine, "why might a gender imbalance exist?"

Re: USA tops International Math Olympiad for first time in 21 years

#60

Post by delish »

kafkaesque wrote: post #12

This is definitely off-topic, but have people taken a look at Po-Shen Loh's company expii.com? He's the coach for the US team. It says: Expii is a collection of free, interactive, explanations written by people from around the world Interesting!

I gasped when I saw my acquaintance's name on HN. By coincidence, I'm wearing an expii t-shirt right now.

He's really nice, and excited about improving math and science education. Expii could be called an "explorable explanations" Wikipedia[0]--one can write code (I think a subset of JS), embed videos etc in service of a better explanation.

I'm also fond of him because his office has an X server (or would that be X client?). How many startups actually use X??

[0] Just my two cents.

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