Problem-Solving and Selected Topics in Number Theory by Michael Th. Rassias
The International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO), in the last two decades, has become an international institution with an impact in most countries throughout the world, fostering young mathematical talent and promoting a certain approach to complex, yet basic, mathematics. It lays the ground for an open, unspecialized understanding of the field to those dedicated to this ancient art.
The tradition of mathematical competitions is sometimes traced back to national contests which were organized in some countries of central Europe already at the beginning of the last century. It is very likely that a slight variation of the understanding of mathematical competition would reveal even more remote ancestors of the present IMO. It is, however, a fact that the present tradition was born after World War II in a divided Europe when the first IMO took place in Bucharest in 1959 among the countries of the Eastern Block. As an urban legend would have it, it came about when a high school mathematics teacher from a small Romanian town began to pursue his vision for an organized event that would help improve the teaching of mathematics.
Since the early beginnings, mathematical competitions of the international olympiad type have established their own style of problems, which do not require wide mathematical background and are easy to state. These problems are nevertheless difficult to solve and require imagination plus a high degree of original thinking. The Olympiads have reached full maturity and worldwide tatus in the last two decades. There are presently over 100 participating countries.
