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
Category: Publicity
January newsflash
Here’s a mix of several publicity-related things I’d like to broadcast. AlphaGeometry A lot of you have already heard the buzz about the AlphaGeometry news and Nature paper. (I’ve known about this paper for a while now, so I’m glad I can finally talk about it!) I managed to snag a cameo in the DeepMind… Continue reading January newsflash
OTIS Mock AIME 2024
This is a short advertisement announcing that the OTIS Mock AIME 2024 is out. The short version is that I wanted to give my students a chance to try their hand at problem composition, which they took enthusiastically, and from their submissions I chose 15 problems to replicate an AIME. There's some really nice problems… Continue reading OTIS Mock AIME 2024
An advertisement for what puzzle hunts are about and why they’re cooler than everyday puzzles
I remember when I got the central aha, I justified it to my teammates as “it’d be so cool, so it has to be right”. — Nathan Pinsker This is a post meant to explain what makes puzzle hunts appealing to people who haven't done them before. If you do care about the actual mechanical… Continue reading An advertisement for what puzzle hunts are about and why they’re cooler than everyday puzzles
The depth of Hanabi
This post is a short chrono-logue about my time with the card game Hanabi, which I play with the H-group. Thus, it’s also implicitly an advertisement for why I enjoy the game Hanabi so much. I think the progression is a bit interesting because it can be divided into almost discrete “stages”, with each stage… Continue reading The depth of Hanabi
Slice of life of the OTIS GM
Here’s a snapshot of what running OTIS looks like these days. Starts from last Sunday afternoon until Monday lunch. Timestamps indicate when the action was completed (rather than started). Sunday 13:04: Process a late financial aid request from someone who forgot to request it earlier. Sunday 13:14: Edit OTIS website to clarify that if you… Continue reading Slice of life of the OTIS GM
Twitch & USEMO Announcement
Twitch Solves ISL Season 3 I'll be resuming streaming live solves of math problems this fall! As usual, the stream runs at 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern on Fridays, for 2-4 hours per stream usually. The dates of the first ten streams are currently scheduled (tentatively; these move around a lot) as: Friday September 15… Continue reading Twitch & USEMO Announcement
New handout: Intro to Proofs for the Morbidly Curious
Downloadable at https://web.evanchen.cc/handouts/NaturalProof/NaturalProof.pdf. I don't know why I thought to write this, but it's been bugging me for a year or two now that I've never seen the answer to "what is a proof" written out quite this way. So here you go. It's a bit weird for me to be writing an article that… Continue reading New handout: Intro to Proofs for the Morbidly Curious
Signal boost for Carina Initiatives full-time position
The Carina Initiatives (https://carina.fund) is a friend of the math education community which has supported organizations like Art of Problem Solving, BEAM, Athemath, and others. They're starting a math talent search organization in the United States and are looking to hire a full-time leader (salary $200K-$250K). Passing this along in case anyone in this space… Continue reading Signal boost for Carina Initiatives full-time position
But look at me now
Last weekend in StarCraft, the world championship at IEM Katowice 2023 saw a so-good-it-must-be-scripted Cinderella story, where Oliveira won the world championship in a totally unexpected way. It was a whole roller-coaster of upset after upset from Oliveira, and up until the grand finals we were all still asking, "this can't be, is this really… Continue reading But look at me now
Power Overwhelming 