s******r
发帖数: 5309 | 1 America just won the world’s hardest math contest. Again.
(Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
By Mahbub Majumdar
August 1 at 5:16 PM
Mahbub Majumdar is the national coach for the Bangladesh Mathematical
Olympiad and a professor at BRAC University in Bangladesh.
Last month, the United States made an extraordinary achievement: For the
third time in four years, it won the International Mathematical Olympiad.
This is staggeringly impressive. The Math Olympiad is the hardest and most
prestigious math competition for high school students in the world.
University professors often cannot solve more than one or two of the six
problems on the exam. Since 1978, Math Olympiad gold medalists have made up
more than a third of the winners of the Fields Medal, the Nobel Prize
equivalent for mathematics.
Yet from the U.S. team, James Lin from Phillips Exeter Academy received one
of two perfect scores at the competition. (The other went to Britain’s
Agnijo Banerjee.) Also from the U.S. team, Andrew Gu, Vincent Huang, Michael
Ren and Mihir Anand Singhal all won gold medals, and Adam Ardeishar
received a silver medal.
The team, led by mathematics professor Po-Shen Loh of Carnegie Mellon
University, is about as American as you can get. After all, its members
celebrated their victory by going to McDonald’s. But in this time of
charged debates about immigration, it is worth noting that many of the team
members are second- or third-generation immigrants. Loh, in fact, is the son
of immigrant parents from Singapore. The team’s deputy leader, Sasha
Rudenko, is the son of Ukrainian immigrants.
Immigration is often thought of as a way to fill jobs that locals find too
taxing, too challenging or too low-status. We typically think of immigrants
as working as manual laborers in construction, plumbing, hospitality and
agriculture.
But this is not the whole story. Immigrants are high achievers in some of
the most challenging vocations, such as mathematics, physics and computer
science — all necessary for a technologically reliant society. Each of
these fields requires immense dedication and hard work. Mathematics is
perhaps the most mentally taxing of these disciplines.
By welcoming and giving opportunities to the Lins, Singhs, Steins, Huangs,
Hossains, McArthurs, Onahs, Garcias and Rudenkos of the world — who are
eager to learn the difficult math, solve the difficult physics problems and
write the difficult code — America renews itself and makes itself “great
again,” to borrow language from President Trump. Because of this, America
has an Apple, a Google and thousands of smaller cogs that make the U.S.
economy the most dynamic in the world.
Every country envies America’s talent pool, yet very few are bold enough to
copy the U.S. model of immigration that can recharge stagnant sectors of
society. That is why no other country will ever be able to emulate the
dynamism of America, whether they are as big as a China or as disciplined as
a Germany. The United States’ repeat Math Olympiad wins reflect this truth
. If China, Russia and other countries that have devoted tremendous
resources to winning the competition cannot beat the United States’ diverse
pool of high school students, how can they beat well-funded U.S. companies
at innovation?
But if the United States turns its back on the immigrants who have made it
“great,” then America in the future will not have the Po-Shen Lohs or
Sasha Rudenkos to create the next generation of best-in-the-world innovators
and scientists. America will be like every other country — not exceptional
and not able to lead the world in every field.
There’s another advantage that comes with America’s liberal immigration
policies: They link the United States with the rest of the world. Immigrants
allow Americans to engage with the countries of their ancestors and to
improve those countries’ educational systems and economies. This creates
tremendous goodwill toward the United States and a safer, better world for
everyone.
For example, Loh travels to countries ranging from China to Bangladesh to
Brazil to teach mathematics to young people. The goodwill he generates is
priceless. In my own small way, I try to do something similar: I coach the
Bangladesh Math Olympiad team, which won its first gold medal this year — a
great achievement that generated unbelievable excitement for the young,
developing country.
I feel privileged to be a part of this, because as a son of immigrant
Bangladeshis who grew up in the United States receiving the best that
America has to offer, I know firsthand the good that America does in the
world. By helping Bangladesh’s students reach greatness, I am taking part
in the chain of transformation that liberal and open U.S. immigration
policies offer. This culture of aspiration and generosity is America at its
best. | B*Q
发帖数: 25729 | | S*****l
发帖数: 1043 | 3 左左喜欢大鸡巴阿拉伯和黑男，也不待见小黄男，咋办？
【在 B*Q 的大作中提到】
: 床大喜欢大波妹
: 不喜欢眼镜小黄男
| s*******p
发帖数: 1291 | | h**c
发帖数: 1979 | | h********7
发帖数: 1318 | 6 哪个“美国奥数金牌教练”在骂？哪个队员的家长是非法移民？哪个的家长是难民？哪
个的家长是穆斯林？ | B*Q
发帖数: 25729 | 7 没折
小黄难只好回习国了
为了玛噶
值了
【在 S*****l 的大作中提到】
: 左左喜欢大鸡巴阿拉伯和黑男，也不待见小黄男，咋办？
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