German Success at International Mathematic Olympiad

On July 30, 2007, the German mathematics team was awarded with one gold medal, three silver medals and a bronze medal, by Vietnam prime minister Phan Van Khai for its excellent performance at the 48th International Mathematic Olympiad (IMO). The final training of the German team for the IMO, which was carried out from July 19 to July 31, 2007, in Hanoi was supervised by Dierk Schleicher and Michael Stoll, professors of Mathematics at Jacobs University, and Alexei Belov former visiting professor.

[ Jul 31, 2007]  In total, 520 participants from 95 countries competed in the IMO 2007. Peter Scholze from the German team won a gold medal for his brilliant performance and was the only participant who solved the notorious “brainteaser No. 6”, the most difficult challenge ever posed at an IMO. Besides Scholze, the mathematicians Friedrich Feuerstein, Georg Schröter and 14-year-old Lisa Sauermann, youngest of the team, were overjoyed with a silver medal. Also Stephan Neupert, holder of a bronze medal, ranks among the winners of the this year’s contest.

The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is the world championship mathematics competition for high school students and is held annually in a different country. The first IMO was held in 1959 in Romania, with 7 countries participating. In 2009, Jacobs University will host the 50th IMO anniversary on-campus, welcoming students from all over the world. Jacobs University has been taking an interest in mathematical contests for several years now. Besides preparing German students for the IMO since 2005 and organizing the IMO the year after next, the university regularly gets involved with natural science events for gifted students. In 2006 i.e., two teams of mathematicians of the Technische Universität München (TUM) visited the campus and competed against Jacobs University students in a heart-stop final in the context of the competition “Matboj”. Because of the support of high potentials and the renowned courses offered in the field of mathematics, many of the successful IMO participants later on enroll for studies at Jacobs University. Recent examples are the this year’s IMO winners from Lithuania and Vietnam.