Watching this was awesome! I'd love to watch similar competitions where students (undergrad/grad) attempt to solve hard problems under insane time pressure, e.g. for Physics some more straightforward ones from Landau's Theoretical Minimum: https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/problems-from-lev-land.... Seeing the thought process, the red herring paths taken, etc. would be a good learning experience (and a lot of fun).
Rather than blackboards they should have had electronic boards so we can see better their scribbles.
Both players are given a vanilla Ubuntu system with a GPU and asked to get a certain outdated software package with multiple non-apt-gettable dependencies working on the system.
Forbidden to use docker or conda.
The final round will be similar except it will be a Jetson device running an outdated ARM version of Ubuntu.
This reminds me of when, as a teen, I got into tinkering with various security tools using the BackTrack live linux distro (I think it was the precursor to Kali?), and on my then laptop had to run about ten commands I had painstakingly cobbled together from various google searches in order to get the GPU drivers running and a decent screen resolution — on every reboot
We already have CTF competitions where players are given a server or program and have to hack into it. How about a competition where players are given a legacy codebase and have to learn it to fix various bugs?
With a huge prize pool, thanks to a few government and financial companies who are unexpectedly charitable...
A few companies already use a similar process for interviewing; they give you a codebase that you have to figure out and implement a feature in that codebase.
There are generic integration algorithms that would try pretty much every known technique, so I would wager to say yes (though looking forward to a counterexample proving me wrong)
I am not a mathematician and always wondered this as integration problems come far too often where a creative genius can solve what others can't: what is the computational complexity of symbolic integration like? how come general purpose algorithms can't seem to solve some whereas humans can? from what I see in online discussions, it sounds like hard problems require the type of "human creativity" where bruteforce or algorithmic machinery won't trivially suffice which is quite interesting to me.
I've never had the guts to learn how to perform proper archival research into 1900s West Point mathematics textbooks to confirm/see the solution, but I remember from biographies a famous anecdote from Dwight Eisenhower's days as a cadet involving integral calculus.
tl;dr: in that era students memorized step-by-step solutions from the textbook since it was the "right way" to do things. Eisenhower wasn't prepared, got called to the board and came to a creative solution back that didn't match the textbook. He got chewed out by the instructor for bluffing but then Major Bell an Associate Professor of Mathematics intervened and confirmed Eisenhower approach and insisted textbooks be updated to reflect the new solution.
From: Page 10 of Eisenhower: Soldier and President by Stephen Ambrose
“Often the instructors knew little more than their students. In integral calculus one day, the teacher order Eisenhower to do a long, complicated problem on the blackboard. The insrturctor had previously explained the problem and supplied the answer, but since it had been obvious to Eisenhower that the instructor was doing it entirely by rote he had paid no attention. Thus, when called upon, he had ‘not the foggiest notion of how to begin.’ After struggling for almost a full hour, he finally tried a solution that, to his amazement, worked. He was asked to explain his solution; it was shorter and simpler than the rote answer. But the instructor interrupted him to charge that he had merely memroized the answer and then put down a lot of figures and steps that had no meaning.
Eisenhower could not abide being called a cheat. He began to protest so vehemently that he was soon in imminent danger of being expelled on a charge of insubordination. Just then, a senior officer from the Mathematics Department walked in. He inquried about the trouble, had Eisenhower go through the solution again, then pronounced it superior to the one being used in the department and ordered it incorporated into the Mathematics Department’s teaching”
From At ease: stories I tell to friends (written by Eisenhower -1967):
"About midway in our West Point course we began the study of integral calculus. The subject was interesting but the problems could be intricate. One morning after recitations the instructor said that on the following day the problem would be one of the most difficult of all. Because of this he was giving us, on the orders of the head of the Mathematics Department, an explanation of the approach to the problem and the answer.
The explanation was long and involved. It was clear that he was doing his task completely by rote and without any real understanding of what he was talking about. Because I was a lazy student, with considerable faith in my luck, I decided there was little use in trying to understand the solution. After all, with twelve students in the section, only one of us would get this problem to solve, the odds were eleven to one that I would not be tapped. The following morning I was chosen. Going to the board, on which I was required to produce the solution, and then explain it to the instructor, I had not the foggiest notion of how to begin. I did remember the answer given by the instructor and wrote it in the corner of the board.
I set to work. I had to make at least a good start on the problem, show something or receive a grade of zero which would do nothing for me in a course where my grades were far from high. Moreover, I could be reported to the disciplinary department for neglect of duty in that I had deliberately ignored the long explanation. With this in mind I sought in every possible way to jog my memory. I had forty-five or fifty minutes to solve the...
Trigger warning for those of us who've terrible maths anxiety and/or traumatic memory of sitting through maths classes during childhoood, having no idea what's going on. <shudder>
28 comments
[ 0.24 ms ] story [ 67.7 ms ] threadhttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integration_Bee
Rather than blackboards they should have had electronic boards so we can see better their scribbles.
Which sounds hellish to compete in, but I'd be fascinated to watch.
Both players are given a vanilla Ubuntu system with a GPU and asked to get a certain outdated software package with multiple non-apt-gettable dependencies working on the system.
Forbidden to use docker or conda.
The final round will be similar except it will be a Jetson device running an outdated ARM version of Ubuntu.
With a huge prize pool, thanks to a few government and financial companies who are unexpectedly charitable...
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=integrate+%28e%5E%28x%2...
tl;dr: in that era students memorized step-by-step solutions from the textbook since it was the "right way" to do things. Eisenhower wasn't prepared, got called to the board and came to a creative solution back that didn't match the textbook. He got chewed out by the instructor for bluffing but then Major Bell an Associate Professor of Mathematics intervened and confirmed Eisenhower approach and insisted textbooks be updated to reflect the new solution.
From Page 77: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Eisenhower/RCeteK7LEiYC...
From: Page 10 of Eisenhower: Soldier and President by Stephen Ambrose
“Often the instructors knew little more than their students. In integral calculus one day, the teacher order Eisenhower to do a long, complicated problem on the blackboard. The insrturctor had previously explained the problem and supplied the answer, but since it had been obvious to Eisenhower that the instructor was doing it entirely by rote he had paid no attention. Thus, when called upon, he had ‘not the foggiest notion of how to begin.’ After struggling for almost a full hour, he finally tried a solution that, to his amazement, worked. He was asked to explain his solution; it was shorter and simpler than the rote answer. But the instructor interrupted him to charge that he had merely memroized the answer and then put down a lot of figures and steps that had no meaning.
Eisenhower could not abide being called a cheat. He began to protest so vehemently that he was soon in imminent danger of being expelled on a charge of insubordination. Just then, a senior officer from the Mathematics Department walked in. He inquried about the trouble, had Eisenhower go through the solution again, then pronounced it superior to the one being used in the department and ordered it incorporated into the Mathematics Department’s teaching”
From At ease: stories I tell to friends (written by Eisenhower -1967):
"About midway in our West Point course we began the study of integral calculus. The subject was interesting but the problems could be intricate. One morning after recitations the instructor said that on the following day the problem would be one of the most difficult of all. Because of this he was giving us, on the orders of the head of the Mathematics Department, an explanation of the approach to the problem and the answer.
The explanation was long and involved. It was clear that he was doing his task completely by rote and without any real understanding of what he was talking about. Because I was a lazy student, with considerable faith in my luck, I decided there was little use in trying to understand the solution. After all, with twelve students in the section, only one of us would get this problem to solve, the odds were eleven to one that I would not be tapped. The following morning I was chosen. Going to the board, on which I was required to produce the solution, and then explain it to the instructor, I had not the foggiest notion of how to begin. I did remember the answer given by the instructor and wrote it in the corner of the board.
I set to work. I had to make at least a good start on the problem, show something or receive a grade of zero which would do nothing for me in a course where my grades were far from high. Moreover, I could be reported to the disciplinary department for neglect of duty in that I had deliberately ignored the long explanation. With this in mind I sought in every possible way to jog my memory. I had forty-five or fifty minutes to solve the...