Thoughts?
russians, they are tricky
Russians are sexier\hotter. Ask bchadwick.
Russians
The Chinese.
mo34
approaching the question quantitatively, here is the ranking by country from the international math olympiad competition every year (where the top 5-6 high school wunderkids from every country go at it UFC style) http://www.imo-official.org/results.aspx analysis of the historical results shows domination by USSR until around '89 when China enters the contest and owns the number one spot since then, with newly-formed Russia trailing behind. consistent strong performances by some other small eastern european countries, USA, japan and korea complete your typical top 5. india is out of top 10 for the most part, except peaking at No. 7 once
Russians.
Mobius Striptease Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > approaching the question quantitatively, here is > the ranking by country from the international math > olympiad competition every year (where the top 5-6 > high school wunderkids from every country go at it > UFC style) > > http://www.imo-official.org/results.aspx > > analysis of the historical results shows > domination by USSR until around '89 when China > enters the contest and owns the number one spot > since then, with newly-formed Russia trailing > behind. consistent strong performances by some > other small eastern european countries, USA, japan > and korea complete your typical top 5. india is > out of top 10 for the most part, except peaking at > No. 7 once great research, case closed
Mobius Striptease Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > approaching the question quantitatively, here is > the ranking by country from the international math > olympiad competition every year (where the top 5-6 > high school wunderkids from every country go at it > UFC style) > > http://www.imo-official.org/results.aspx > > analysis of the historical results shows > domination by USSR until around '89 when China > enters the contest and owns the number one spot > since then, with newly-formed Russia trailing > behind. consistent strong performances by some > other small eastern european countries, USA, japan > and korea complete your typical top 5. india is > out of top 10 for the most part, except peaking at > No. 7 once Interesting stuff, quality of education in US is not as bad as people think if we base it solely on this.
The quality of education in the US is actually pretty good. The problem is that Americans think the US should be number 1 in everything. Because of this, the fact that there are a handful of countries with lower education systems that are equal to or better than that of the US is regarded as a failure by Americans.
…except that the members of the US team were all Asian. Seriously, you can’t take the math Olympiad as a final answer since you have to adjust for population size, training, etc. This can tell you which country can field the best team, but nothing about which country’s peoples are innately better at math.
cfagoal2 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > > Interesting stuff, quality of education in US is > not as bad as people think if we base it solely on > this. not sure if one can judge the quality of high-school education in general by this. we are talking about a team of dozen math genius kids representing every country. USA has the population and the resources to train a few math whizzes that perform at the top in this competion, but these kids probably don’t go to regular high school anyway
Hello Mister Walrus Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The quality of education in the US is actually > pretty good. The problem is that Americans think > the US should be number 1 in everything. Because > of this, the fact that there are a handful of > countries with lower education systems that are > equal to or better than that of the US is regarded > as a failure by Americans. Agreed. Apparently, BO thinks we should extend school hours to catch up with other countries … http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1926529,00.html “If you ain’t first, you’re last” - Ricky Bobby
Furthermore, as you guys probably realize, the people who compete in international math competitions are hardly representative of the overall populations that they come from. The top 0.000000001% of Chinese might be the best mathematicians in the world, but there are millions more that are barely literate. To validate the conclusion that math olympiad results indicate math proficiency on a national scale, we need to modify the question to be “which country has the best mathematicians”, rather than “which country’s population is the best at math”. Also, consider that China has roughly 9 times the population of Russia, and 4 times the population of the US. This will also skew the results of an international math competition.
Check this out, too funny. It’s Britain but still representative. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/6589301.stm
daviskr Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > Apparently, BO thinks we should extend school > hours to catch up with other countries … > http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,192 > 6529,00.html > > > “If you ain’t first, you’re last” - Ricky Bobby It’s also worth pointing out that many countries, particularly those in the east, do not have summer breaks. Thus, the pace of classes is not interrupted yearly. On the other hand, kids in these countries are less likely to have “summer” jobs or other activities like that, which arguably contribute to their development as well.
The top percentiles, taking into account size of population, of any country would be mostly equivalent in their Math skills. They are not smart because of their country or schools they attend, but because of their innate abilities. But I guess you are talking about a larger top percentiles from which some wander to quantitative finance and schools, therefore, country, may matter. I did find at least one of my Russian colleague during my Civil Engineering Master’s program at Rice to be far superior in Math skills compared to others. But he was a Jew and terribly discriminated in old Russia and not allowed to go their top school/Academy and so ended up in Civil Engineering. In short, I am not sure if he was smarter than the smartest guy in Maths department.
^ excellent point buddham 1 - the best of the best, are really independent of their country or race 2 - the best in terms of overall performance, it’s probably due to the educational system, economic environment, etc.
You can’t use the Olympiad results as a proxy for our public school system as I’m sure the competitors are all privately schooled. In addition, it is important to take variance into account as I have a feeling the dispersion is pretty wide for the US, allowing us to both score well in a math olympiad and poorly as a mean.