LEFT PAGE : ANDRES BURITICA MONROY ( YEAR 11 ) AND ZIAN SHANG ( YEAR 9 ). ABOVE : LUCAS TEOH , ANDREW WANG , OLIVER TAN ( ALL YEAR 10 .) BELOW : AARON DO AND TOM HE ( BOTH YEAR 10 )
This year has undoubtedly presented the educational enterprise with challenges , yet amid these challenges arise opportunities . Below I describe some examples of the resilience and tenacity of the students of Scotch College who have seized opportunities among the challenges of 2020 , and have shown themselves to be nothing short of world class in the domain of mathematics .
The International Mathematical Olympiad ( IMO ) is the most prestigious and intellectually demanding mathematics competition for high school students in the world . It sees each country send their six finest young mathematicians to compete over two days . Each day the students tackle three fiendishly difficult problems over four and a half hours .
This year international travel was not an option , and so the competition proceeded at local exam centres subject to strict remote proctoring arrangements . Scotch liaised with the Australian Mathematics Trust , which was responsible for administering the competition on behalf of the IMO committee , and , in a historic first , the School hosted the competition for the Victorian contestants .
Two of the six students chosen to represent Australia were from Scotch , and Scotch was the only school in the country to have multiple students selected for the team . These students were Andres Buritica Monroy ( Year 11 ), and Zian Shang ( Year 9 ). For their herculean efforts , Andres was awarded a silver medal and Zian was awarded a bronze medal . These accolades contributed to Australia finishing eighth in the world , in what was our second-best performance ever in the history of the competition .
Scotch students have also enjoyed tremendous success in the University of Melbourne Mathematics and Statistics Research Competition . This competition presented high school students with the opportunity to work in small teams to investigate one of several open-ended mathematics problems over a period of several months .
Students submitted reports to the university with their findings , and the most impressive teams were invited to present their research via videoconference to a panel of mathematicians , in order to decide the final winners . Two teams of Year 10 students from Scotch were selected for this honour , and following their brilliant presentations , they tied for first place in the senior division .
Tom He and Aaron Do presented a vast generalisation of the initial problem they selected , using an isomorphism between the rational numbers and certain geometric objects known as rational tangles , to give an algorithm for performing various transformations on the set of extended rationals .
Oliver Tan , Lucas Teoh and Andrew Wang gave a deep and insightful presentation on methods for detecting gaps between prime numbers , demonstrating tremendous skill in deploying Python to make progress on a computationally hard number theory problem .
That these Year 10 students were deemed to have produced the most sophisticated reports of any high school students in the state speaks volumes for the depth of mathematical talent in the Scotch student body .
DR GARETH AINSWORTH – HEAD OF MATHEMATICS
www . scotch . vic . edu . au Great Scot 41