2015 International Mathematical Olympiad

The US team has won the gold medal at the 2015 International Mathematical Olympiad,
thus leading to a celebration in the US media, which typically completely ignores
the IMOs whenever the US team does not win (not since 1994).
China (which usually wins) finished a close second this time.
The teams from the USA and China finished far ahead of all the others.

The US team (which had an ethnic Chinese head coach) apparently
consisted of three students of Asian heritage (2 Chinese, 1 Indian)
and three white students (higher than the typical number of two).
It's interesting that two female students came fairly close to qualifying
for the team. Congratulations to the US team.

As usual, the 2015 IMO had a disproportionate number of East Asian teams near the top
(four out of the top five).

1) USA 185
2) China 181
3) ROK (South Korea) 161
4) DPRK (North Korea) 156
5) Vietnam 151
6) Australia 148
7) Iran 145
8) Russia 141
9) Canada 140
10) Singapore 139
11) Ukraine 135
12) Thailand 134

Taiwan (18th), Japan (tied for 22nd-24th), Germany (27th), India (37th) and Israel (40th)
are among the teams that may be disappointed with their performances.
Curiously, Israel finished just ahead of Saudi Arabia (41st), a surprisingly good result
for the Saudi team, which had one female student, Shaden Alshammari, who won an
individual bronze medal. It's interesting that while I can quickly find photos of all the
male members of the Saudi team, I have not been able to find her photo so far.
I wonder if there could be a Saudi 'female modesty' issue about publishing her photo.


.

I have found a photo of Shaden Alshammari by doing a more general search.
It's curious that her photo does not appear on the same IMO-linked website that has
photos of the five male members of the Saudi Arabian team.

Originally posted by Duchess64
I have found a photo of Shaden Alshammari by doing a more general search.
It's curious that her photo does not appear on the same IMO-linked website that has
photos of the five male members of the Saudi Arabian team.

Saudi is only slightly biased against women. I wonder if they will ever get the right to have a drivers license...

Originally posted by sonhouse
Saudi is only slightly biased against women. I wonder if they will ever get the right to have a drivers license...

Every journey starts with a single step. Selecting a female student for Saudi Arabia's
mathematics team is progress, and I hope she can become a role model for girls there.
As far as I know, only one female student has ever qualified for the US mathematics team.

Originally posted by Duchess64
Every journey starts with a single step. Selecting a female student for Saudi Arabia's
mathematics team is progress, and I hope she can become a role model for girls there.
As far as I know, only one female student has ever qualified for the US mathematics team.

I know, 'and she was a trans'🙂

We know that women is not as competitive as men, by tradition.
But women are as good in math as men. But men often neglect this, by tradition.
True or false? Comments?

Originally posted by sonhouse
I know, 'and she was a trans'🙂

Sorry, my earlier post was based on my imperfect memory, not recent factual look-up.
Two young women have participated in the US mathematics teams at the IMOs.
Melanie Wood (a high school cheerleader) won two individual silver medals in the 1998-99 IMOs.
Alison Miller (home-schooled) won an individual gold medal (5th best on the team) at the 2004 IMO.

Would a home-schooled girl be more able to concentrate on mathematics because she
would not be exposed to the normal social pressures and distractions of high school life
for American girls? GM Irina Krush, a Soviet immigrant, has said that one reason why
she became strong in chess was that she was a 'loner' (with no friends) at her American
high school, and so she did not care about the 'peer pressure' to become a popular girl.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
We know that women is not as competitive as men, by tradition.
But women are as good in math as men. But men often neglect this, by tradition.
True or false? Comments?

"But women are as good in math as men."
--FabianFnas

I honestly cannot be certain that's true. For most levels of mathematics, I have no
compelling reason to doubt that women can perform about as well as men. I expect
that, apart from other realities discouraging women from completing a PhD program,
women eventually could approach men in their numbers of earning PhDs in mathematics.
Yet I don't know if there ever will be equally many women as men at the summit of mathematics.
Perhaps male brains tend to have more extreme outliers (in both directions) in mathematics.

Originally posted by Duchess64
I honestly cannot be certain that's true.
...
Yet I don't know if there ever will be equally many women as men at the summit of mathematics.
...
Perhaps male brains tend to have more extreme outliers (in both directions) in mathematics.

In our culture it is tradition to think so. But is it a universal fact?

Originally posted by FabianFnas
In our culture it is tradition to think so. But is it a universal fact?

If I recall correctly, you (FabianFnas) are from Sweden?

With regard to the IMOs, Sweden's teams (which have not performed well) have included
four female students since 2009, which is a higher proportion than for most other countries.
But female students are still a small minority of the members of Sweden's recent teams.

Originally posted by Duchess64
If I recall correctly, you (FabianFnas) are from Sweden?

With regard to the IMOs, Sweden's teams (which have not performed well) have included
four female students since 2009, which is a higher proportion than for most other countries.
But female students are still a small minority of the members of Sweden's recent teams.

You're right. I'm from Sweden. Neither men nor women here performs very well in math nowadays.

But this 'proves' only that we belong to the 'same' culture with the same tradition. If we disregard the tradition - do men and women compete on equal terms in math?
In sports where muscular strength then the difference is a fact (although I know a lot of women who are stronger than me). But what about the cerebral strength?

For what it's worth, my opinion is that not as many women as men are interested in Math. However, I think that if a woman IS interested in math, she can do as well, and in many cases, better than her male counterparts. I majored in Psychology (who didn't?), but I took math classes up to advanced algebra and trigonometry. They were always my most difficult classes, probably because even though I could grasp the basics, the subject just bored me to tears. I never took calculus because by the time I got that far in my studies, other subjects were endlessly more fascinating than math.

Originally posted by Duchess64
Sorry, my earlier post was based on my imperfect memory, not recent factual look-up.
Two young women have participated in the US mathematics teams at the IMOs.
Melanie Wood (a high school cheerleader) won two individual silver medals in the 1998-99 IMOs.
Alison Miller (home-schooled) won an individual gold medal (5th best on the team) at the 2004 IMO.
...[text shortened]... erican
high school, and so she did not care about the 'peer pressure' to become a popular girl.

You are delusional if you believe that men don't experience similar levels of "peer pressure" as the females do in there early education.

The base of science is mathematics. If you cannot handle math, then you will never be good in science. You just don't have the means to be a good scientist. This is the fact today. Perhaps it was different in the times of Marie Curie, I don't know.

I am not god in math, and that means that the door is closed for me to a scientific career.

If, I say if, women are genetically indisposed toward math, means that they are also genetically indisposed toward science.
Nobelprize in physics? Not for women!

Right or wrong?

Originally posted by Duchess64
If I recall correctly, you (FabianFnas) are from Sweden?

With regard to the IMOs, Sweden's teams (which have not performed well) have included
four female students since 2009, which is a higher proportion than for most other countries.
But female students are still a small minority of the members of Sweden's recent teams.

Sweden's total population is only around 9 million, so I think it would be unlikely for Sweden's "best" to ever match China's "best" in nearly anything except the Winter Olympics and speaking Swedish.

And then there's the US, which tends to put together winning teams by poaching the best from other countries. Yesterday Germany's rocket scientists, today China's mathematicians. In this regard, if I may use a Star Trek analogy, the US is kind of like the Borg Collective.