NEWS
MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY SUCCESSFULLY
HELPING SCOTCH BOYS TO ACHIEVE IMPRESSIVE
LAUNCHED
COMPETITION RESULTS
The Scotch College Mathematical Society ( SCMS ), founded this year , is a student-run society that meets on Friday lunchtimes to promote the enjoyment and understanding of mathematics among the student body .
The society is led by a committee of four outstanding young mathematicians : Andres Buritica Monroy , Jason Chi ( both of Year 12 ), Zian Shang ( Year 10 ) and William Cheah ( Year 7 ). Remarkably , this committee comprises half of the six member delegation that was chosen to represent Australia in the 2021 International Mathematical Olympiad .
Initially the SCMS sessions took place on campus , in person , but when government restrictions prevented this from happening the boys employed their considerable technical skill to deliver the sessions remotely .
In practice , this involved running a Zoom session with one student sharing his
Overleaf screen . Overleaf is a browser-based engine for the mathematical typesetting system , Latex . It allows people to remotely collaborate on projects involving significant mathematical content , and typeset them to publication standard . In these sessions the students would discuss a range of topics at a higher level of sophistication than is typically seen in the school curriculum , while typesetting their work in real time in Latex for all to see .
On one occasion , the students worked through a past Australian Intermediate Mathematics Olympiad paper as a group , while typesetting their solutions in real time . It is difficult to overestimate the skill this requires , from both mathematical and technical perspectives . This exercise assisted the younger students in appreciating how to tackle Olympiad problems of increasing difficulty .
The result of these efforts is seen in Scotch ’ s incredibly impressive performance on a range of mathematics competitions this year . For example , Scotch students alone achieved approximately 20 per cent of the prizes in the 2021 Australian Intermediate Mathematics Olympiad . In addition , a delegation of Scotch students took out first prize in the School Maths Olympics , organised by the University of Melbourne . Based on this performance they were invited back to compete against the university students in the University Maths Olympics . Remarkably , they also took out first prize in this event .
DR GARETH AINSWORTH – HEAD OF MATHEMATICS
30 Great Scot Issue 164 – December 2021