Two pieces of news for high school math contest enthusiasts: OTIS Mock AIME 2025 We're running the OTIS Mock AIME again this year! It'll go from December 19, 2024 to January 20, 2025. New this year is that we're offering two tests, I and II, and you can try either or both. However, unlike the… Continue reading OTIS Mock AIME 2025 & USEMO 2024 results
Year: 2024
FrontierMath
This is a short blog post on the FrontierMath benchmark, a set of lots of difficult math problems with easily verifiable answers. Just to be clear, everything written here is my own thoughts and doesn’t necessarily reflect the intention of any collaborators. When you’re setting a problem for a competition like the IMO or Putnam,… Continue reading FrontierMath
Hangul spellcheck for Vim
There’s got to be a better way to do this. Someone please enlighten me. Modern Korean is written in 한글 (Hangul), which uses a syllabic alphabet. It includes spaces between words, unlike Chinese or Japanese, which means that it’s possible to have meaningful spellchecking. So of course one day I decided I wanted to configure… Continue reading Hangul spellcheck for Vim
September newsflash
Publicity announcements for all things Evan: Twitch stream schedule Twitch Solves ISL will resume on September 13, 2024 and September 20, 2024 at the usual time. Then a two-week break (because I'm traveling on both September 27 and October 4), and then continuing on Fridays for some to-be-determined number of weeks. Check the calendar. In… Continue reading September newsflash
Imperative statements in geometry don’t matter
There's this pet peeve I have where people sometimes ask things like what kind of strategies they should use for, say, collinearity problems in geometry. Like, I know there are valid answers like Menelaus or something. But the reason it bugs me is because "the problem says to prove collinearity" is about as superficial as… Continue reading Imperative statements in geometry don’t matter
A proof of Poncelet Porism with two circles
Brian Lawrence showed me the following conceptual proof of Poncelet porism in the case of two circles, which I thought was neat and wanted to sketch here. (This is only a sketch, since I'm not really defining the integration.) Let $latex {P}&fg=000000$ be a point on the outer circle, and let $latex {Q}&fg=000000$ be the… Continue reading A proof of Poncelet Porism with two circles
The story of the AutoCarrot
1. Glazed carrots Okay. Imagine you’re, like, trying to make glazed carrots or something. Maybe a really simplified recipe looks something like: Cut your carrots into suitably sized pieces with a knife. Use a measuring spoon to get the right amount of oil, sugar, salt, etc. Throw the carrots and other ingredients into a frying… Continue reading The story of the AutoCarrot
OTIS X applications are open
The tenth year of OTIS is now accepting applications. Due August 1, 2024 for regular deadline and April 30, 2025 for late applications. https://web.evanchen.cc/otis.html#apply The application and syllabus are pretty much going to be the same as in previous years; here are some of the (mostly small) changes: I deleted the question that used to… Continue reading OTIS X applications are open
Infinitely many stages of grief
Where do all the smart, curious, earnest kids go these days? One of my friends asked me this recently, and I wasn’t sure what to say. In the last ten years, something has changed. If I had to summarize my concerns in one sentence, I would say this: kids these days no longer feel they’re… Continue reading Infinitely many stages of grief
(EC)⁵: College Essay Consulting
Calling all high school juniors! We’re proud to announce a new educational service to accompany last year’s ⛵IS: Evan’s Chen’s Elite Cutting-Edge College Essay Consulting & Editing Center! Abbreviated (EC)⁵. Why trust Evan? Evan Chen is one of the leading names in admissions to elite American colleges. Students that Evan has mentored have gone on… Continue reading (EC)⁵: College Essay Consulting
Power Overwhelming 