RUDN University students Alexander Kirilenko and Alexander Korotkov bronze medalists of the International Olympiad in Mathematics

From August 2 to August 8, students from all over the world solved the most difficult problems in English in algebra, analysis (real and complex), geometry and combinatorics. The students were prepared for the Olympiad by professors of the S.M. Nikolsky Mathematical Institute Mark Malamud and Leonid Rossovsky, assistant of the Faculty of Physics, Mathematics and Natural Sciences Pavel Sipailo.

Alexander Korotkov and Alexander Kirilenko told about the Olympiad, university studies and plans in science.

Alexander Kirilenko

“Since school I have been interested in mathematics and programming, I planned to become a developer. My interests led me to the RUDN in the direction of “Mathematics”. RUDN turned out to be the most attractive option: the training program has all the necessary mathematical base and a year of computer science. It was also important that the university provided an increased scholarship.

Now I’m continuing to study mathematics and programming, and I’ve started to take an interest in science. Participation in Olympiads helps to support scientific activities. I have been preparing for the competition for 3-4 months. And for good reason, some questions were more difficult than expected. To solve them, good knowledge of the first two courses is required, but the conditions are non-standard. There were problems involving the use of theorems that we have not yet studied. Of course, the coaches helped to prepare for such difficult tasks — they have been actively engaged with us over the past months. Although this year the Olympiad was held in an online format, but I would like to attend the event abroad and communicate with foreign students.

In the future, I plan to develop in the field of dynamical systems or in computational mathematics and mathematical modeling. Now I am participating in the project “Piecewise Euclidean dynamics” under the guidance of Professor Vladlen Timorin of the Higher School of Economics on the website “Big Mathematical Workshop”.

Alexander Kirilenko

“Science is a space of possibilities, the creation of new things and the benefit to society. That’s why I decided that this is ‘mine’. Mathematics attracts with the beauty of coincidences — it’s like another world, only in the head. In the field of mathematics, I am interested in differential equations. But my direction requires a large mathematical apparatus, so now I am studying specialized literature.

The Olympiad helped to join the scientific activity. It was easier to write in the online format — not so exciting. I started preparing at the beginning of the year — RUDN organized a circle for solving Olympiad problems, solved the tasks of previous years. The Olympics turned out to be difficult in its own way, but quite solvable. Some problems were easily solved through specific theorems that are not taught in a regular course.”

For reference:

The International Mathematics Competition for University Students (IMC) is an annual mathematical competition open to all mathematics students.

The Olympiad is designed for students completing 1-4 courses of the university; the maximum age of participants is 23 years at the time of the competition. Since 2010, the Olympiad has been held at the American University in Bulgaria, Blagoevgrad.