Talk:International Mathematical Olympiad

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Mathematics grading:	Start Class	Low Importance	Field: General
Tompw (talk) 17:43, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

1 Number of medals
2 Revert War in Malaysia section
3 Numbers below ten (a grammatical point)
4 Notable achievements
5 Notable past participants

[edit] Number of medals

According to the article, "Not more than half of the participants will receive medals." This guideline was disregarded in 2006, since forcing it would have meant an extremely low percentage of medalists (very many competitors being tied at a critical score). Somebody who writes better English and is more familiar with Wikipedia might please note this in the corresponding part.

[edit] Revert War in Malaysia section

Come on, please stop the irresponsible actions of reverting to your wish, anonymous wikipedia users. I agree to the points there, but please don't try to erase the truth (to the person who persistently erase the government bias part), or be overly biased when it comes to venting the frustrations (to the person who deleted the parts of inadequate training and the uninspiring mathematical curriculum). --changyang1230 17:53, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

The disputed section:

Generally, no one knows the team's exact selection criteria since the exam results in the training camps are not disclosed. However, it is known to the public that the team must consist of a certain number of Bumiputeras. There have been many cases where even the top three in the OMK were not selected as one of the trainee to represent the country.

Additionally, private school students are not allowed to participate in the International Olympiad training camps in Malaysia.

These explained why it's often that Malaysia government does not send good contestants to IMO. In fact, this is one of the reasons that Malaysia never get a desirable results in IMO, apart from the inadequate training and the uninspiring mathematical curriculum in the country.

The section was added to the article again today by an anon. I deleted a part that was not neutral point of view, and added a citation needed tag for the other paragraphs. However, this is the same situation as some months ago (see edit history), and then no citation was added so the section was removed. So the section is probably original research and not verifyable, and thus against Wikipedia policy. I will allow the section in for one week, and, if no source is provided, I will remove it enirely. --Stijn Vermeeren 19:24, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

(User:Borisblue even didn't give it a week and removed it. --Stijn Vermeeren 09:33, 10 September 2006 (UTC))

Get a life.

Some students are too competitive, the only thing they want is to participate in as much competition as they can, to bloat up their resume (and ego). Math olympiad is insignificant in the real world, even in mathematics. Not being able to represent your backwood high school or your country is *not* the end of the world.

High school students and teachers place an exaggerated sense of importance on Olympiad problems. Do not be too hung up on the toy problems, and work your way to be a real mathematician instead. (Yes, some former olympiad contestants grew up to be fine mathematicians, but I bet they stopped doing toy problems after a while). Contrary to what people say, math olympiad is not a window to mathematical research, it only makes you more acquainted with mathematical rigor in a very elementary way. Fixation with doing elementary math problems is counter productive in the long run.

Want some advice? Learn some real math: real and complex analysis, number theory (not only the olympiad stuff, learn also the noninteger topics: fields, algebraic NT, galois, etc), geometry (Euclidean is too trivial, try Algebraic Geometry), Point Set / Differential / Algebraic Topology, also learn some computer science and physics, preferably some economics and statistic. That would smooth your way through college and beyond. Don't give me that platitude about doing `only real math', that paradigm went out of fashion after G. H. Hardy died.

People who does mathematics as a hobby never got very far: they just do olympiad problems for hours on end, jubilating after solving a tough problem, got hung up on "mind games" like chess or bridge, read a lot of pop math book a la Gardner, got interested in trivial stuff like recreational linguistics and doing puzzles. Doing those things are fine, but believe me, you are far from being a good mathematical student.

That being said, quit whining -- hit the nearest bookstore and get some real college math textbooks. Learn, go to college, and put the trivial olympiad maths aside. Nobody can stop you. Nobody validate their academic career by olympiad competitions anyway. That's not that big of an achievement, trust me.

an anon is violating WP:NPOV and making original research (WP:ISNOT) __earth ^(Talk) 06:12, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I really do not understand why you are discussing the need for olympiads here. You can debate whether or not they do it for fun or money but that goes for all sports, are you questionning competitions in general? Anyway, this is not the place. If you see something on wikipedia that is incorrect say so, but don't try to rid the world from olympiads on the wikipedia disccusion page

[edit] Numbers below ten (a grammatical point)

I'd like to remind everyone that small numbers, up to ten or twelve, are normally spelt out: it is considered correct. Because this article concerns the workings of the IMO, not any mathematical proof or explanation, this case does not qualify as (anywhere even kind of close to) an exception. So, I'd like to ask why my changes were reverted. (Without objection on or before 31 January, I will restore those changes.) Neonumbers 03:17, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I have restored those changes. Neonumbers 10:05, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notable achievements

Reid Burton is not the only one who obtained four gold medals, Christian Reiher (Germany) did so too, in the years 2000-03 and he also won a bronze medal in 1999, so he is the most successful participant so far. I was with him in Tokyo three years ago. See German math olympiad site for verification. I don't know how to formulate it properly, so I didn't change it. Peter Eberhard, 7 April 2006