My cousin’s in the International Maths Olympiad, which is currently on in Slovenia. It’s a competition for those who are under 20, haven’t been to university yet, and with those conditions, are the top mathematicians in their countries, and hence the world. Six contestents per country.
After we found the picture of my cousin, my parents and I amused ourselves by seeing if we could find the country with the most stylish contestents. You wouldn’t expect the mugshots from an International Maths Olympiad to exude style, and they don’t. But after a random sample through the countries, we decided that the Italians were the most stylish geeks on the planet (and they even have a girl in their team, for extra style points!).
Depends on what you mean by style of course. The Saudis looked suitably exotic, while the Austrians wore matching sweatshirts (which exuded geekiness). I was quite disappointed by the Finns, who I expected to exude scandinavian cool.
Actually, this entire post is probably jealousy from my lack of mathematical talent. I’ll be haunting that website to see how my cousin does!
My brother went to the Maths Olympiads in Prague and Helsinki, years ago (like twenty). There was an eleven year old on one team by the name of Terry Tao (sic?). I’ve always wondered what became of him.
I saw two teenage boys at Heathrow last week wearing Trinidad and Tobago maths olympiad t-shirts!
I should update that the Italian girl got a gold medal! I was very pleased for her as one of the few women in the whole competition. My cousin just missed out on a bronze, unfortunately.