International Mathematical competition won by young talents from St. Petersburg

The Faculty of Science hosted Vojtěch Jarník International Mathematical Competition. Both categories were dominated by students from St. Petersburg, Russia.

In total, 133 contestants joined the competition this year. Following the tradition, each of them had to solve four problems prepared by the jury. Not even the 29th year of this international competition made it easy for the jury to decide on the winners.

“Each year is kind of challenging for both our contestants and us, the jury. As far as I can tell, both groups rose to the challenge pretty well. The Department of Mathematics deserves credit for hosting the whole event,” said Dmytro Mitin, the chairperson of the jury whose home university is Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv.

Members of the Department of Mathematics who hosted the competition had to deal with a series of technical issues. “We are lucky to have competent colleagues who handled everything perfectly so that the competition could go off without a hitch,” said Jan Šustek, the head of the Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Science.

The closing ceremony and medals for the best brains

There were several contestants sharing the first places in both categories. However, the jury declared Stanislav Krymski and Stanislav Ershov from National University in St. Petersburg the overall winners. “The competition was quite difficult. I almost did not manage to solve those four problems in time. But the effort paid off – the price is amazing and I really like the mathematical symbols carved on the trophy,” said Stanislav Ersov, the winner of the second category.

Among the contestants were also secondary school students. To the surprise of the jury, Vojtěch David, a seventeen-year-old student from Otto Wichterle Grammar School outdid many university students of Mathematics. “My initial goal was to solve one of those four problems. I think I achieved it and that makes me happy,” said humbly Vojtěch who is dreaming about studying at Cambridge one day.

Big plans for next year

With this year of the competition over, members of the Department of Mathematics have already started thinking about the next one, which will mark the competition´s 30th anniversary. “I think it is going to be big. My colleagues came up with an idea to invite winners from previous years. Let´s see how it goes and if our budget allows,” concluded Jaroslav Hančl who is a professor at the Department of Mathematics and a man that stood at the birth of Vojtěch Jarník - a competition for university students of mathematics with the longest history in Europe.

You can access this year´s results and solutions on the official website of the Department of Mathematics.

Updated: 02. 05. 2019