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Evan Chen is a very valuable person in the Math Olympiad scene. The Geometry book [1] he wrote in high school is required reading for any serious competitor an

Evan Chen is a very valuable person in the Math Olympiad scene. The Geometry book [1] he wrote in high school is required reading for any serious competitor and I believe he is the main responsible for some bringing some techniques into the olympic meta, such as Barycentric Coordinates. Also, his blog post [2] about writing is one of the best ones I've ever read. [1] https://web.evanchen.cc/geombook.html https://web.evanchen.cc/geombook.html [2] https://blog.evanchen.cc/2015/03/14/writing/ https://blog.evanchen.cc/2015/03/14/writing/

dezren39 5y ago
thank you for this comment this turned my day around
voidhorse 5y ago
Seems like a really interesting person. Off topic, but his assertions that the majority of students are “conned” into thinking math is important is strange to me. Almost everyone I know always knew they’d never need to know the Pythagorean theorem for the vast majority of life’s obstacles—they weren’t tricked into thinking it was important, they learned it because as a kid you don’t have any power and are coerced to complete certain tests to make your way along a certain circumscribed educational track.
- tuatoru 5y ago
  The Pythagorean theorem is really useful for any construction. Builders use it regularly. More experienced DIYers also use it. Not a good example of rarely used schoolbook learning. How about obscure stuff about hyperbolic trig functions (sinh, tanh and so on)?
  - voidhorse 5y ago
    I actually just had to use some sin/cos the other day while programming some audio stuff so there ya go. Not so useless after all.
    - alanbernstein 5y ago
      I remember telling a friend once in high school, that I was kind of happy to find a good real-world use for cubic polynomials. She asked what it was, so I started "well I was programming..." and she interrupted, "of course math is useful for programming, that doesn't count".

dezren39 5y ago

thank you for this comment this turned my day around

voidhorse 5y ago

Seems like a really interesting person. Off topic, but his assertions that the majority of students are “conned” into thinking math is important is strange to me. Almost everyone I know always knew they’d never need to know the Pythagorean theorem for the vast majority of life’s obstacles—they weren’t tricked into thinking it was important, they learned it because as a kid you don’t have any power and are coerced to complete certain tests to make your way along a certain circumscribed educational track.

tuatoru 5y ago
The Pythagorean theorem is really useful for any construction. Builders use it regularly. More experienced DIYers also use it. Not a good example of rarely used schoolbook learning. How about obscure stuff about hyperbolic trig functions (sinh, tanh and so on)?
- voidhorse 5y ago
  I actually just had to use some sin/cos the other day while programming some audio stuff so there ya go. Not so useless after all.
  - alanbernstein 5y ago
    I remember telling a friend once in high school, that I was kind of happy to find a good real-world use for cubic polynomials. She asked what it was, so I started "well I was programming..." and she interrupted, "of course math is useful for programming, that doesn't count".