Prep Session for the International Mathematical Olympiad at the JKU

For the first time, a prep session for the International Mathematics Olympiad took place at the JKU on Tuesday.

Prep session for the International Mathematical Olympiad
Prep session for the International Mathematical Olympiad

7th class students Paulina Exner and Naomi Cristurean wrote a report about their afternoon at the JKU.

"A total of 35 students from all over Upper Austria came to the JKU. The day was an invitation to all of the beginners who were already taking part in a course and wanted to focus more on advanced mathematics. The day was an opportunity for students to concentrate just on math the whole day and work together in groups with little supervision by teachers," said Mag. Koller, who organized the day together with Prof. Friedrich Pillichshammer and Dr. Zoltán Kovács. It was also important for students interested in math to get to know each other better, network, and have fun working together.

The academic ambience at the JKU was, of course, a highlight and as an introduction to the day’s two topics, geometry and inequalities, theoretical input was provided during lectures. In the morning, Dr. Zoltán Kovács, a professor at the JKU since 2015, began the lectures by focusing on "Geometry and Automatic Proofs". He explained, “Geometry requires creative thinking and always using new 'tricks' in order to find a solution.” After the lecture, the participants worked independently in small groups and were supervised by students. The math problems were 'very challenging, but also interesting and impressive'.

After lunch, Ian Fischnaller surprised other BORG students with a lecture about inequalities, as he himself is just completing the Matura in 8N class. His future plans also include helping in research later on, especially in the field of inequalities, which he finds beautifully abstract and interesting. Following the group work, students discussed the solutions together. All in all, it was a very interesting day and we would like to thank Mag. Koller, Dr. Friedrich Pillichshammer, Dr. Zoltán Kovács and the students who helped us very much because without them, we would not have had the opportunity to enjoy a day like this."

This was taken from the students’ report and the JKU would be more than happy to welcome these future engaged researchers back to campus any time!