The following is a question from IMO 2020: The first time I tried to solve the problem, I thought I had a solution, but it turned out to be wrong. I wrongly assumed that would be maximized when , which is commonly true in Olympiad problems, but that needn’t be the case. I then lookedContinue reading “IMO 2020, Problem 2”
Author Archives: ayushkhaitan3437
Quantum Computing
Today, I will be talking about quantum computing. I will be following Quantum Computing– Lecture Notes by Mark Osdin, who is a professor at the University of Washington, Seattle. These lecture notes are roughly based on the book Quantum Computing and Quantum Information by Michael A. Nielsen and Isaac L. Chuang. So what exactly isContinue reading “Quantum Computing”
IMO 2019, Problem 1
The International Math Olympiad 2019 had the following question: Find all functions such that . The reason that I decided to record this is because I thought I’d made an interesting observation that allowed me to solve the problem in only a couple of steps. However, I later realized that at least one other personContinue reading “IMO 2019, Problem 1”
EA- November
Some of us also helped pay college fees for a COVID affected student in Tamil Nadu
Poverty, mental health and rhesus monkeys
Today I came across a very interesting paper titled “Values Encoded in orbitofrontal cortex are causally related to economic choices” by Ballesta, Shi, Conen and Padua-Schioppa. I haven’t read and analyzed the paper fully, partly because of the many statistical tools that I will have to learn to assess it carefully. However, I did manageContinue reading “Poverty, mental health and rhesus monkeys”
Economics with bad drawings
All things considered, I am not very good at reading. Let me elaborate on that. Most of my learning, throughout my life, has been based upon reading texts. Recently, while trying to wrap my head around complicated geometric notions written in texts without pictures, I realized that I was pretty horrible at understanding concepts withoutContinue reading “Economics with bad drawings”
Evolution, Wars and Game theory
This post is on Evolutionary Game Theory, derived from the book Networks, Crowds and Markets: Reasoning about a highly connected world by David Easley and Jon Kleinberg. This seemingly esoteric field shines a light on an incredible number of things, including evolution, wars, and society itself. Although the subject is inherently mathematical, the mathematics onlyContinue reading “Evolution, Wars and Game theory”
Effective Altruism- October
I am attaching my EA donation slip for October below. I took the Effective Altruism pledge last year, in which I pledged to donate 10% of my lifetime earnings to the organization. Today is a special day for many Indians, including myself, as today is Gandhi Jayanti, Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday. Reading his autobiography was oneContinue reading “Effective Altruism- October”
Forecasting the American presidential elections
The article that I will be talking about today is How the Economist presidential forecast works by G. Elliott Morris. I have always wanted to know more about how American Presidential forecasts work, and how reliable they are. This is my attempt to try and understand it. Note that the authors have developed a codeContinue reading “Forecasting the American presidential elections”
IMO 1988/Problem 6
I spent some time thinking about the infamous IMO 1988/Problem 6 today: For positive integers , if is an integer, prove that it is a square number. After some initial false starts, I came up with this: . We need to eliminate the , in order to have some hope of a quotient that isContinue reading “IMO 1988/Problem 6”
