Thursday, February 11, 2010

Passions

Hi again for a third posting of this blog in this year. today, I will be posting about my interests and passions in particular.

As almost everybody in the class knows, I am quite good in math and thus have a passion in the subject. However, not everybody knows why math is so fascinating, and these are the people who normally do not appreciate math and hate it for its complexities. To say simply, math is a study of patterns and all formulas, conjectures and proofs are all different parities of patterns (proof as a negative pattern as it seeks to justify a pattern).

Perhaps many think that math Olympiad is vastly different from normal math as a subject, and it deals with higher level problems that we cannot approach. that is a wrong mindset as Mr Rong has put forth to us, under the masquerade of normal math questions. Yes, many of those questions qre extracted from competitions or olympiad books so now you can feel more gratified that you cannot solve the problem, and more often than not, I cannot too.

Take Tuesday's AMC10 as an example. It was so-called very hard but in a math competition, it is best to keep your mind sharp and your options wide. This way, you will be able to spot patterns faster and more effectively, giving you more time to work out the interior sub-problems within the problem.

Thus what I am trying to bring across is, math olympiad is the art of grasping your list of methods, formulas, and tricks in your palm and to work their magic when the time comes (this may sound familiar because it is quoted by Dr... Tan? Wong? Ng? sorry I forgot). Frequently, one should combine your methods and working backwards is another good skill.

In all, I am just simplifying math olympaid as a subject and I am just seeking to break the stereotype that math olympiad is unapproachable.

ng Yi pin.

PS. sorry for the fluctuating writing style. I have been trying out many writing styles and so far this is the most formal one. I think this is what you call "climax" in the list of rhetorics, although I am not writing a speech it is clearly ironical my "climax" seems to be the most bland.

2 comments:

  1. Nice to see that you are trying to simplify and make more approachable (especially for mathematically-inferior people like me) the broad and deep subject of mathematics!

    The first sentence of the second paragraph about sums up why you have written this posting in the first place, and has given me some food for thought. Come to think of it, being good (that is, having natural talent) in a subject makes you like the subject, and vice versa (isn't interest the best teacher). And if you think deeper, this positive cycle leads you deeper and deeper into your fields of interest, or passions. It is this cycle which separates true strengths from "strengths" built by solid work or intellect (I can bet that everyone in our class, be he weak or strong in maths now, used to get near-perfect grades for maths in P1, P2 and P3), and thus distinguishes our passions from our dislikes. In my case, I only truly knew my strengths and weaknesses in sec 1.

    By the way, I am only too relieved to know that even the best mathematical minds in this cohort have difficulty solving Mr Rong's advanced questions. Apart from mingen, the-person-whose-blog-i-am-commenting-on, golden sheep and a select few, half the class virtually drowns during such sessions.

    Thankfully I read this post! If not I probably would not have made this observation.

    AND in the second sentence of the second paragraph... :(

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  2. (sorry, not in my writing mood today)
    Indeed, some may hate Math as they simply do not understand. But me, though not exactly an Olympiad student material -.-, do love math very much. The beauty of math, is simply what attracts me, when you have tamed a crazy monster equation into a nice small one, that is when you feels the sense of satisfaction. It is like Pure Mathematicians, they study not for the practical uses(that is applied mathematicians), but for the beauty of the entire field. How Mother Nature, apart from following laws of physics(which is math itself), also follows certain rules, how the Fibonacci sequence seems to show up everywhere, from high up in the mountains, to the bottom of the deep blue sea. THE WORLD IS ONE GIANT MATH EQUATIONS! :D:D:D

    Anyway, I like your blog layout, it is a welcoming change after the previous cramped one, but there are still many rooms for improvement. Like how the blog is too white and boring and stuff... I recommend you to go Blogskin.com to search for some blogskin, who knows? Maybe you will find one full of numbers! That will be awesome. And I especially like your writing style, engaging, to-the-point, and several little jokes here and there, keep it up!

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