Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

Do you have a budding math genius at your house? Chairman Michael Farris talks about math competitions that can strengthen your child's reasoning skills, today on Home School Heartbeat.

Mike:


Our guest this week has been Anders Kaseorg. He's a 16-year-old homeschooler from North Carolina who spent a month earlier this summer getting in-depth training in higher mathematics to prepare him for an international competition. Anders, just give our listeners some basic understanding of what's the level of mathematics that you're doing for these examinations?


Anders:


Well the kind of problems that we do in Olympiad competition are proofs. You're given a statement about geometry or number theory or whatever and you have to prove it completely. A simple answer isn't enough.


Mike:


Anders, tell us about your experience at the 2002 International Mathematical Olympiad.


Anders:


Well the 6 of us went to Glasgow, Scotland and we had a day to rest up and then we competed in the math competition itself for 2 days. You have 6 problems altogether and 9 hours to work them.


Mike:


How many people are competing total in this Olympiad?


Anders:


There were 84 teams I think, so about 500 students. There were about 40 gold medallists and about 80 silver medallists.


Mike:


Well, Anders, what a terrific success story and thank you for being on our program today. I'm Mike Farris.