Todays puzzles are mostly written by Arsenii Nikolaiev, a Ukrainian mathematics undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge. Arsenii is a former silver medallist at the International Mathematical Olympiad, who, together with his brother Andrew, founded a maths and coding outreach club for Ukrainian schoolchildren, Kvanta, from which the problems below are taken.
Ukraine has a strong tradition in mathematics. In order to ensure that this will continue during and after the war, a group of Ukrainian mathematicians last month announced the creation of the
International Centre for Mathematics in Ukraine, an institution that will support high level research and train young scientists. They believe that maths will have a key role to play in the reconstruction of the country once the conflict is over.
The location of the centre is yet to be decided, but the project will be paid for in part by Alex Gerko, the UK’s largest tax payer, whose algorithmic trading firm XTX Markets is the founding donor, pledging up to €1m in matched funding. The centre has the support of the European mathematical community, and six winners of the Fields Medal (the most prestigious prize in maths) attended the announcement, including the Ukrainian Maryna Viazovska, who won the medal last year.
One of the objectives of the centre is to support talented Ukrainian schoolchildren – through outreach initiatives like Kvanta, which produced the puzzles below.
https://www.theguardian.com/