COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. The Colorado Mathematical Olympiad, the largest essay-type mathematical competition in the United States, is set for April 22 at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.
Founded 22 years ago and chaired since 1984 by Alex Soifer, professor, Interdepartmental Studies, the Math Olympiad offers middle and high school students a chance to demonstrate academic skills and to use those skills to compete for medals, scholarships and other prizes.
2001 was the first year the Olympiad attracted the attention of international students, when members of the Philippine national team traveled to compete in the Olympiad. 2005 may be the second year UCCS will host international competitors. A group of students from Tokyo are working on travel plans to attend the 22nd annual Colorado Math Olympiad.
This year more than 700 students are expected to sharpen their pencils and take on five mind-bending problems beginning at 9 a.m. April 22 at the UCCS campus.
“The Olympiad brings excitement to mathematics learning, which often turns students away by mind-numbing drill,” Soifer said. “The Olympiad is a powerful tool of attracting new generations to the study of mathematics, and more generally creative fields, such as arts and sciences.”
“The Olympiad is a unique joint effort of school districts, schools, institutions of higher education, business community and local and State governments.”
Annually, competition sponsors such as CASIO, Wolfram Research, Texas Instruments, School Districts 20, 2, 11, 49, Arapahoe and other high schools, and UCCS Bookstore provide prizes for the Colorado Mathematical Olympiad. Chancellor Pam Shockley-Zalabak offers gold, silver and bronze medals along with $1,000 scholarships to UCCS. The judges also award scholarships that can be used at any certified American university.
The Colorado Math Olympiad is designed to whet the appetites of young mathematicians.
“If you like our problems and solve some of them during or after the Olympiad, have no doubt mathematics has entered your life and will be connected with your future work in one way or another,” said Soifer.
Soifer promises that this year’s problems, as in previous years, will be unusual and exciting.
“They will positively challenge your creativity,” he said.
To give an idea of the type of problems offered, one of the problems from the 2004 Olympiad follows.
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Crawford Cowboy Had a Farm, Ee-i-ee-i-o. A Crawford cowboy is unable to create a rectangular ranch using all 2004 straight sections of fence that he has. He decides to break some of the sections, each section no more than once, so that the resulting set can do the job.
(a) Prove that there is a collection of 2004 sections such that even after breaking exactly one section, he cannot create a rectangular ranch using all the sections.
(b) Find the smallest number n, such that breaking n sections is enough to do the job regardless of the lengths of the original 2004 sections.
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There is no fee for student participation and no limit on the number of schools or students who may participate. Check-in and registration will take place between 8 a.m. and 8:45 a.m. April 22 in the University Center Gymnasium. There, the students will be assigned to a room and beginning at 9 a.m. they will be given four hours to complete the five creatively challenging math problems.
Winners will be announced at an April 29 awards ceremony in the University Center Gymnasium at UCCS. At that time, Soifer will review the solutions to the five questions, deliver a lecture on an exciting mathematics and present the awards. A reception will follow with a variety of guest speakers.
For more information about the Math Olympiad, and to view problems from previous years, visit http://www.uccs.edu/~asoifer/olympiad.html.
University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, located on Austin Bluffs Parkway in northeast Colorado Springs, is the fastest growing university in Colorado and one of the fastest growing universities in the nation. The university offers 25 bachelor’s degrees, 17 master’s and two doctoral degrees. The campus enrolls about 7,800 students annually.