Count Down Pa Reprint Edition

"Count Down" is a well-written and concise profile of the International Mathematical Olympiad and, more broadly, the field of mathematics. While the book offers an engaging overview of the Olympiad, its real strength is in its coverage of the individuals underlying the contest.Steve Olson provides readers with an insightful and unique perspective on what type of person and abilities it takes to become a part of a Mathematical Olympiad team. Moreover, the book challenges the reader with facts and anecdotes related to the roles "nature" and "nurture" play in the evolution of traits such as creativity.

Count Down promises to be the story of six students who compete their way to a place on the 2001 U.S. Math Olympiad Team and what happens once they get to the big contest. I was expecting something like the excellent documentary Spellbound, which was about some of the kids who made it to the National Spelling Bee one year. I was a bit disappointed.Count Down is best when it is about the students, but author Steve Olson often digresses to talk about topics related to math. He discusses what genius is, how math is taught in the U.S., why there aren't more girls on the U.S. team, the history of math contests, and much more. These are all interesting and pertinent topics, but I found that what I really wanted to know more about was the kids themselves.Maybe a spelling bee is just inherently more dramatic since it takes place on stage, while the math contest takes place at desks and inside the contestants' heads. The whole notion of a math "team" in this case is misleading, since the members' individual scores are added together to determine the team score. They don't solve the problems as a team, although they train together. The top individuals are recognized as well, so I'm not sure what the point of a "math team" is.Still, I did learn some odd facts, such as that much of the behavior in nature that is considered inborn or instinctive, isn't. Day-old chicks who were thought to eat mealworms instinctively, fail to do so if the chicks' feet are covered. Young chimpanzees who supposedly have an inborn fear of snakes, do not shy away from snakes if the chimps' diet is changed. This sort of knowledge challenges the nature vs. nurture arguments regarding I.Q. and genius.Count Down is a good book about math education, but it doesn't have the drama or suspense that a good contest should have. For a good book about competition, try Cookoff, about cooking competitions in the U.S. For a good book about math, try either My Brain is Open or The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, both good biographies of Paul Erdos, eccentric Hungarian mathematician.

A few years ago, the movie Spellbound gave viewers insight into the world of spelling bees, culminating in the National championship. Since then, I've noticed other competitions getting similar treatments, such as bowling (in The League of Ordinary Gentlemen) and crossword puzzles (Word Play). Although it is a book and not a movie, Steve Olson's Count Down fits right into this genre of the competition documentary.Count Down deals with the International Mathematical Olympiad, in which high school level students from around the world gather together to solve difficult math problems. How difficult? The first problem they are given reads: "In acute triangle ABC with circumcenter O and altitude AP, angle C is greater than or equal to angle B plus 30 degrees. Prove that angle A plus angle COP is less than 90 degrees." This is the easiest of the six questions the Math Olympians must solve.Perhaps coincidentally, there also six members in the U.S. team, so Olson dedicates one chapter to each member and his approach to a problem (it is an all male team). It is like going from Los Angeles to New York by car: there are a number of different routes, each with its pluses and minuses. Similarly, these math problems can be solved a number of different ways.Olson goes beyond the Olympiad itself, however, using it as a launching pad for discussions on topics regarding math education. One key theme that runs through Count Down is how Americans look down on math, often treating those who are good at it with scorns and letting people think that being bad at math is okay. This is contrasted with other countries where math is considered much more valuable. The problem is not merely with the education system but the culture itself.Other topics include the nature of genius and the effects of environment versus genetics. Are boys naturally better than girls at math (which is to say, more genetically inclined), or is it cultural issues that creates a disparity between the genders? (As Olson notes, in the decades of American participation in the Olympiad, boys have outnumbered girls 118 to 1.) Is it even possible to truly separate the two? Can the abilities that these teenagers have be taught to others?Olson keeps the math rather simple so even the mathematical layperson should be able to understand all that's going on. If you enjoy math, this is a recommended read. If you don't enjoy math, this is a must read: it will help show why mathematical skill is not merely nice but is essential.

CD is two books in one, one interesting, the other pedestrian. The interesting book includes: profiles of participants in the 2001 IMO + some description of the IMO itself + partial solutions of the IMO problems. The pedestrian book includes: lengthy digressions on the topic of genius/talent. CD weaves back and forth between both books. The result: a greatly short-changed book one. Profiles could have been much longer/deeper; the event could have been described in greater and more interesting detail; solutions (relegated to Appendices) could have been complete. The contents of book two read like an extended (fragmentary) book report. The topic of genius/talent has been ably treated elsewhere in the literature. All of book two, considerably compressed, would far better have served to introduce a much expanded book one.CD reads well enough; it does provide a couple hours' entertainment. It could have been so much more.