Taiwan topped the World Mathematics Invitational, which finished on Tuesday, with 13 diamond, 39 gold, 56 silver and 36 bronze awards.
The annual competition draws mathematics students from around the world, with national try-outs prior to the final organized by a host country in July, organizing committee examination director Paul Ou (歐俊甫) said.
The World Mathematics Invitational returned to Malaysia after eight years for its 12th edition this year, which began on Friday last week, Ou said.
Photo: screen grab from the World Mathematics Invitational Web site
Contestants ranged from kindergarten to senior-high-school level, he said.
The 904 contestants this year were from 22 countries, including Taiwan, Australia, Bahrain, Bulgaria, China, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine and Vietnam, he said, adding that Taiwan had the second-biggest team, topped only by the host country.
In addition to the diamond, gold, silver and bronze awards won by Taiwanese, the nation also garnered nine merit awards.
Diamond awards are given to contestants whose total score ranked among the top 3 percent of all participants. Gold, silver and bronze are given to contestants in the top 12, 25 and 30 percent respectively.
Six Taiwanese students on Tuesday were given Legend awards for winning gold for three consecutive years.
Liu Cheng-lin (劉承潾), who studies at Washington High School in Taichung, achieved the highest total among the Taiwanese at the event, earning the Star of the World, which is given to the top scorer from each country or region with at least 50 contestants.
An undated video showed a group of winners, including Liu, posing for a group photograph holding their nations’ flags.
Chinese and Russian contestants were apparently vying for space to display their flags, the video showed.
The World Mathematics Invitational is independent of political issues, an international competition where contestants focus on solving math problems, leaving behind territorial disputes between China and the Philippines, India and Pakistan, or Ukraine and Russia, Ou said.
This event is one of the few international contests where Taiwanese can participate in the honor of holding the flag of Taiwan at awards ceremonies, he added.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS