I might be going too far with this Arch Linux brand loyalty, but I am so psyched I don't care. There's three pieces of hardware that I've always kind of wanted but never been willing to spend money on in isolation: A handheld gaming consoleA laptop with a touch screenA laptop with enough power to… Continue reading I reserved a Steam Deck!
Author: Evan Chen (陳誼廷)
Evan is a math olympiad coach who completed his number theory PhD at MIT.
A short dissent on USA eligibility
Sometime this week the American Math Competitions released the following new policy: For the IMO, EGMO, RMM, TSTSTs, and TSTs, and MOP, students must be US citizens or US permanent residents. Visas are not a valid substitute. (AMC Policies) I want to make a rather brief statement on why I was opposed to this change. To… Continue reading A short dissent on USA eligibility
MOP 2021 puzzle hunt
I worked with a few friends on writing a mini one-round puzzle hunt for this year's MOP students. If you want to play, you can do so now at the following URL: https://web.evanchen.cc/mop I'm not sure whether or not this is going to become a recurring tradition. On the one hand, it was loads of… Continue reading MOP 2021 puzzle hunt
Unnecessarily detailed stories of my Mystery Hunt puzzles
As a follow-up to the previous post, I am recording here some details about the (numerous, varied, and deep) revisions that a bunch of my puzzles went through during the production process. These puzzles are in chronological order of when I wrote the puzzle. Spoiler warning: Unlike the last post, these will completely spoil all… Continue reading Unnecessarily detailed stories of my Mystery Hunt puzzles
Some puzzle-writing thoughts from an amateur
The 2021 Mystery Hunt concluded a while ago, and wow, what an experience. I was lucky enough to be on the organizing team, and I am so proud right now to be able to say I am a ✈️✈️✈️ Galactic Trendsetter ✈️✈️✈️. (If you don't know what a puzzle hunt is, betaveros has a great… Continue reading Some puzzle-writing thoughts from an amateur
USEMO Problem Development, Behind the Scenes
In this post I'm hoping to say a bit about the process that's used for the problem selection of the recent USEMO: how one goes from a pool of problem proposals to a six-problem test. (How to write problems is an entirely different story, and deserves its own post.) I choose USEMO for concreteness here,… Continue reading USEMO Problem Development, Behind the Scenes
USA Special Team Selection Test Series for IMO 2021
A lot of people have been asking me how team selection is going to work for the USA this year. This information was sent out to the contestants a while ago, but I understand that there's a lot of people outside of MOP 2020 who are interested in seeing the TST problems :) so this… Continue reading USA Special Team Selection Test Series for IMO 2021
On choosing exercises
Finally, if you attempt to read this without working through a significant number of exercises (see §0.0.1), I will come to your house and pummel you with [Gr-EGA] until you beg for mercy. It is important to not just have a vague sense of what is true, but to be able to actually get your… Continue reading On choosing exercises
USEMO sign-ups are open
I'm happy to announce that sign-ups for my new olympiad style contest, the United States Ersatz Math Olympiad (USEMO), are open now! The webpage for the USEMO is https://web.evanchen.cc/usemo.html (where sign-ups are posted). The US Ersatz Math Olympiad is a proof-based competition open to all US middle and high school students. Like many competitions, its… Continue reading USEMO sign-ups are open
Circular optimization
This post will mostly be focused on construction-type problems in which you're asked to construct something satisfying property $latex {P}&fg=000000$. Minor spoilers for USAMO 2011/4, IMO 2014/5. 1. What is a leap of faith? Usually, a good thing to do whenever you can is to make ``safe moves'' which are implied by the property $latex… Continue reading Circular optimization
Power Overwhelming 