Dozens of the world’s top young mathematicians are at summer camp in Romania sharpening their algebra and trigonometry skills under the guidance of top professors from Romania and France.
The APEX Mathematics (Academic Program of Excellence) is a three-week summer camp in the town Resita, southwest Romania, run by a team of French and Romanian world-class professors from Paris, Strasbourg and Bucharest.
Romania consistently produces some of the top mathematics students in the world, making it a good location for the camp.
“This compares well with the top math camps in the U.S,” said one 16-year-old student in a testimony provided to Universul.net by the organizers. “The level of the professors and mentors is definitely better than anything else in the world.”
In last year’s International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) in Japan, Romania won five gold and one silver medals, and placed first in Europe and fourth in the world, after China, the United States and South Korea.
The August summer camp, which ends on Friday, selected fifty international youngsters (aged 15-19, including about one-third girls), each one a math wizard and passionate about the subject. The teens came from Israel, the U.S. Canada, South Korea, Romania, France, Ukraine, Moldova and Italy.
Every morning, the students had two hours of face-to-face lessons with one of the four teachers. In the afternoon, they worked in groups of five under the supervision of ten doctoral students, four from Strasbourg, one from Paris and five from Bucharest
The non-profit camp was organized according to a concept of Oriensys ltd, a company based in Strasbourg and specialized in education, under the scientific coordination of the Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy and with the logistical support of Informart, an NGO whose aim is the promotion of science.
The camp was coordinated by Olivier Schiffmann from Strasbourg (director of research at the CNRS, Paris-Saclay), with Anne Moreau, Emanuele Macri, all from Paris-Saclay, the first maths department in the world) and Andrei Negut (Lausanne and MIT).
The objective of the camp is very different from that of the training camps for traditional math competitions, organizers said.
“We want to teach young people the best attitude to approach scientific research and to give participants an overview (and the taste!) of research in mathematics. The aim is therefore to encourage participants to explore certain mathematical themes (arithmetic, topology) on their own, through courses but above all through worksheets concocted by university professors, as if they were discovering them,” a press release sent to Universul.net said.
“They are therefore led to make conjectures, to test them, to correct them (repeat the process as many times as necessary!), and then to try to demonstrate them. They are encouraged to work in groups, to exchange ideas, guided in this adventure by a dozen doctoral students who follow them over the three weeks.”
The youngsters stayed at the residence halls of the Babes Bolyai University with a full-on weekend of tourist activities, on the Danube and the Carpathians Mountains. Half of the participants received full scholarships to participate. Sponsorship was offered by the city of Resita, the Romanian Commercial Bank, Aqua Carpatica, the Dacia Foundation, Constructim.
Despite Romania boasting the best young mathematicians in the world, the overall level of math proficiency has dropped in recent years. ThePISA international study that measures 15-year-olds’ ability in math, reading and science consistently shows that standards have slipped in recent years.
Romania comes 5th in the International Maths Olympics, takes top spot in Europe
