A fantastic compilation of mathematical puzzles, this fully updated three-volume series will challenge and engage serious mathematicians and enthusiasts alike.
"The IMO Compendium" is the ultimate collection of challenging high-school-level mathematics problems and is an invaluable resource not only for high-school students preparing for mathematics competitions, but for anyone who loves and appreciates mathematics. The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), nearing its 50th anniversary, has become the most popular and prestigious competition for high-school students interested in mathematics. Only six students from each participating country are given the honor of participating in this competition every year. The IMO represents not only a great opportunity to tackle interesting and challenging mathematics problems, it also offers a way for high school students to measure up with students from the rest of the world. Until the first edition of this book appearing in 2006, it has been almost impossible to obtain a complete collection of the problems proposed at the IMO in book form. "The IMO Compendium" is the result of a collaboration between four former IMO participants from Yugoslavia, now Serbia and Montenegro, to rescue these problems from old and scattered manuscripts, and produce the ultimate source of IMO practice problems. This book attempts to gather all the problems and solutions appearing on the IMO through 2009. This second edition contains 143 new problems, picking up where the 1959-2004 edition has left off.
In July 2009 Germany hosted the 50th International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). For the very first time the number of participating countries exceeded 100, with 104 countries from all continents. Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the IMO provides an ideal opportunity to look back over the past five decades and to review its development to become a worldwide event. This book is a report about the 50th IMO as well as the IMO history. A lot of data about all the 50 IMOs are included. We list the most successful contestants, the results of the 50 Olympiads and the 112 countries that have ever taken part. It is impressive to see that many of the world’s leading research mathematicians were among the most successful IMO participants in their youth. Six of them gave presentations at a special celebration: Bollobás, Gowers, Lovász, Smirnov, Tao and Yoccoz. This book is aimed at students in the IMO age group and all those who have interest in this worldwide leading competition for highschool students.
Mathematical Olympiad Treasures aims at building a bridge between ordinary high school exercises and more sophisticated, intricate and abstract concepts in undergraduate mathematics. The book contains a stimulating collection of problems in the subjects of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, number theory and combinatorics. While it may be considered a sequel to "Mathematical Olympiad Challenges," the focus is on engaging a wider audience to apply techniques and strategies to real-world problems. Throughout the book students are encouraged to express their ideas, conjectures, and conclusions in writing. The goal is to help readers develop a host of new mathematical tools that will be useful beyond the classroom and in a number of disciplines.
This is the ultimate collection of challenging high-school-level mathematics problems. It is the result of a two year long collaboration to rescue these problems from old and scattered manuscripts, and produce the definitive source of IMO practice problems in book form for the first time. This book attempts to gather all the problems and solutions appearing on the IMO and contains a grand total of 1900 problems. It is an invaluable resource for high-school students preparing for mathematics competitions, and for anyone who loves math.
The International Mathematical Olympiad competition is held every year with the final taking place in a different country. The final consists of a two day exam with the contestants being challenged to solve three difficult problems each day. This book contains the questions from the finals taking place between 1986 and 1999 inclusive. For each problem the author has included at least one solution and often remarks about alternative approaches and the significance of the problem. Many of the solutions are derived from answers given by contestants rather than the organisers as these were often the most elegant solutions. This collection will be of great value to students preparing for the IMO and to all others who are interested in problem solving in mathematics.
The famed International Mathematical Olympiad has been challenging students worldwide for over 40 years. The first competition was held in Romania in 1959 with seven countries participating. It has since expanded to attract competitors from over 80 countries, representing all five continents. This first volume features every question set from 1959–75, along with comprehensive solutions and multiple answers where applicable. A fantastic selection of mathematical puzzles, this fully updated three volume series will be of interest to serious mathematicians and enthusiasts alike. István Reiman’s compilation of logic puzzles and questions will tease the intellect of all those with a mathematical mind.
The importance of mathematics competitions has been widely recognised for three reasons: they help to develop imaginative capacity and thinking skills whose value far transcends mathematics; they constitute the most effective way of discovering and nurturing mathematical talent; and they provide a means to combat the prevalent false image of mathematics held by high school students, as either a fearsomely difficult or a dull and uncreative subject. This book provides a comprehensive training resource for competitions from local and provincial to national Olympiad level, containing hundreds of diagrams, and graced by many light-hearted cartoons. It features a large collection of what mathematicians call "beautiful" problems - non-routine, provocative, fascinating, and challenging problems, often with elegant solutions. It features careful, systematic exposition of a selection of the most important topics encountered in mathematics competitions, assuming little prior knowledge. Geometry, trigonometry, mathematical induction, inequalities, Diophantine equations, number theory, sequences and series, the binomial theorem, and combinatorics - are all developed in a gentle but lively manner, liberally illustrated with examples, and consistently motivated by attractive "appetiser" problems, whose solution appears after the relevant theory has been expounded. Each chapter is presented as a "toolchest" of instruments designed for cracking the problems collected at the end of the chapter. Other topics, such as algebra, co-ordinate geometry, functional equations and probability, are introduced and elucidated in the posing and solving of the large collection of miscellaneous problems in the final toolchest. An unusual feature of this book is the attention paid throughout to the history of mathematics - the origins of the ideas, the terminology and some of the problems, and the celebration of mathematics as a multicultural, cooperative human achievement. As a bonus the aspiring "mathlete" may encounter, in the most enjoyable way possible, many of the topics that form the core of the standard school curriculum.
This groundbreaking work features two essays written by the renowned mathematician Ilan Vardi. The first essay presents a thorough analysis of contrived problems suggested to “undesirable” applicants to the Department of Mathematics of Moscow University. His second essay gives an in-depth discussion of solutions to the Year 2000 International Mathematical Olympiad, with emphasis on the comparison of the olympiad problems to those given at the Moscow University entrance examinations.The second part of the book provides a historical background of a unique phenomenon in mathematics, which flourished in the 1970s-80s in the USSR. Specially designed math problems were used not to test students' ingenuity and creativity but, rather, as “killer problems,” to deny access to higher education to “undesirable” applicants. The focus of this part is the 1980 essay, “Intellectual Genocide”, written by B Kanevsky and V Senderov. It is being published for the first time. Also featured is a little-known page of the Soviet history, a rare example of the oppressed organizing to defend their dignity. This is the story of the so-called Jewish People's University, the inception of which is associated with Kanevsky, Senderov and Bella Subbotovskaya.