14 days in Bucharest

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14 DAYS IN BUCHAREST

Residents of Bucharest are accustomed to tourists of all ages. This must be why hardly anyone paid attention to the multilingual flocks of boys and girls who got acquainted with the Romanian capital last July. And only the initiated knew why schoolchildren from 14 countries came here.

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However, many people later learned about this from the newspapers.

What brought young guests from England, Belgium, Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, Holland, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, USSR, France, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia to Bucharest? Mathematics brought them here: the XI International Mathematical Olympiad was held here.

The path of the schoolchildren to Bucharest was not easy. To do this, they had to take recognized places at all our Olympiads of various “ranks” - school, district, regional, All-Union. Moreover, winning only one year’s competition did not guarantee success. Preference was given to those who had a good “Olympic biography” for several years.

And so we name the names: Vladimir Drinfeld - 10th grade at Kharkov School No. 27, Andrey Zelevinsky - 9th grade at Moscow School No. 2, Arkady Klimov - 9th grade at Moscow School No. 18 (physics and mathematics school at Moscow State University), Elena Neklodova - 10th grade at Moscow School No. 7, Andrey Prasolov - 10th grade and Andrey KhodULEV, 9th grade, both from Moscow school No. 18, Valery Solovev - 10th grade at Kazan school No. 131, Pavel Suvorov - 10th grade at Leningrad school No. 45 (physics and mathematics school at Leningrad State University). These eight-member Olympiad participants had to endure “battles” with the same number of opponents from each foreign team.

The “exam” was taken by a reputable jury, headed by Romanian academicians Moisil and Teodersecu. Its members included prominent scientists and teachers from all countries that sent teams to the Olympiad; From the USSR, the jury included the head of the Soviet team, prof. V. I. Levin.

Having arrived in Bucharest on July 7, our Olympians, V.I. Levin and his deputy - the author of these lines - toured the sights of the city, its historical monuments, museum, parks, and visited the Soviet embassy.

On July 10, two days of perfection began. According to the conditions of the Olympiad, each participant must solve three problems in four hours on both the first and second days; their text is given below. Each task was assessed by establishing a number of points. For the correct answer, the solver received the maximum number of points, and if there were flaws in the solution, the number of points was reduced.

Between July 12 and 19, Olympic participants traveled around the country. Of course, they really liked the Romanian cities, where they felt great, but their hearts and minds were in Bucharest, where the jury summed up the results of the competition. It became known on July 19, when it was licensed. N. Belchesu (lyceums are called high schools there) were named the winner. The jury awarded the first degree diploma to the participants who scored the maximum possible number of points - 40. Three were awarded it: Vladimir Drinfeld (USCP), Simon Norton (England) and Filala Tibor (Hungary). Second degree diplomas of doctors and participants who scored from 30 to 37 points participated in the training. Of our participants, they were received by Andrey Prasolov, who scored 32 points, Andrey Zelevinsky and Andrey KhodULEV, who scored 30 points each. Third degree diplomas were awarded to those who scored from 24 to 29 points. Of the Soviet students, third degree diplomas were achieved by Elena Neklodova and Valery Solovev, who scored 27 points, as well as Arkady Klimov, who scored 24 points. Pavel Suvorov scored 21 points. He received a participant’s diploma.

In terms of the total number of points (231), our team took third place, the Hungarians won first place - 247 points. They were awarded one divolma of the first degree, four - of the second and two - of the third. One Hungarian schoolchild received a participant’s diploma. The GDR team is in second place with 240 points: four second degree diplomas and four third. If we count according to the “Olympic score” 7 points for first place, 4 for second and 3 for third, then the Hungarian team received 29 points, and the team of the GDR and the USSR received 28 points each.

All members of our team who graduated from the 10th grade were enrolled in the mechanical and mathematical faculties of universities without the need for entrance exams.

Here are the tasks given by the Olympiad participants. The complete solution to all problems was published in the journal “Mathematics at School” No. 1 for 1970.

On the first day, perfection was given the following tasks.