To all those that compete in math contests like the AMC in the US or Euclid in Canada, would you be interested in a platform similar to Codeforces or DMOJ but for competitive math?
A few months ago I was preparing for the Euclid, and wanted to look for a platform similar to Codeforces or DMOJ but hosted virtual math competitions instead, because only doing past problems and mock contests was getting kinda dull. However, I couldn't find any such platform like this. Thinking about it now, competitive math seems to be much more popular (at least at a high school level) compared to competitive programming, yet it lacks any platforms that host online contests, use a rating system, and have an active community. I'm thinking of creating such a platform, but I first wanted to get a sense of what others in the competitive math field thought of the idea.
Would you be interested in such a platform? Why or why not? Do you have any advice/suggestions for developing such a platform?
Also, please let me know if such a platform already exists, as it's probably only due to my poor research skills that I was unable to find a platform that fit my description.
this seems a little silly because the way math comps are structured is fundamentally different from comp programming, and it simply just won't work the same. all a virtual contest really is is just mocking the comp and comparing your results with others, which is the exact same as in math, just without the game-like interface with arbitrary numbers for score and rating.
the closest thing i can think of is on the artofproblemsolving, with alcumus for a more game-y feel in rating and stuff, and for the win for more of a competing feel, but the difficulty is much lower than in actual math comps.
another small thing is that in many smaller math comps, there'll be something called a "guts round", which is definitely more similar to codeforces in that its live and you can see other teams progress on problems
Thanks for the feedback!
I agree it would be nice if there was a competitive math version of CodeForces. In fact, something that resembles this did indeed exist; there was a short-answer contest called NIMO (National Internet Math Olympiad) that had monthly contests open to all. If I remember correctly, there was a scoreboard and all at the end where you would be able to see your standings relative to others. Unfortunately, this contest has been discontinued as of 2018.
From this point on, I will refer to competitive math in the short-answer problem solving sense, as opposed to proof-based problems in olympiads; it would be virtually impossible for a live scoreboard-based contest to have proof problems as there would not be instant feedback available.
I'll give my two cents. First of all, traditional math contests do not allow calculators and programs, so even if such an online platform existed, there's no way to prevent the competitors from using these extra aides. However, this latter issue can be mitigated, simply by having a platform that does not employ use of a rating system — this ensures that people who compete truly do it for the sake of enjoyment of problems rather than for "interview prep" or whatever the case it may be. In fact, that's roughly what NIMO was like back when it was actively maintained. In addition, I think there may be a cultural difference between math and programming. Math is traditionally thought of as a pure mind-to-pencil subject, as opposed to programming, where it, by the modern-day definition, should be on a computer. It has been around since antiquity, with a vast literature of problems. On the other hand, programming is something relatively new, and with the importance of programming nowadays, it definitely attracts more of an audience compared to hard math. (It's also why, even on CodeForces, you'll see people complaining about MathForces).
One might wonder if competitive math problems are harder to create than competitive programming problems, and I believe the answer is no — they should be comparable. After all, a lot of hard CodeForces problems are essentially combinatorial in flavor, and as Geothermal puts it here, math enthusiasts who enjoy competitive programming should really just treat CodeForces as a discrete math (and sometimes geometry and algebra) contest.
I see. Your two cents are greatly appreciated :)
https://www.mathshowdown.com/contests was a thing but don't think it's active anymore.
Aight ty
maybe if theorem proves like coq and lean become sufficiently easy to use, then I could see people writing up their proofs in such a language and submitting it. platforms could also provide some sort of standard library to allow users to use only certain theorems. but at least right now, it can be pretty annoying to use and there's a lot more overhead compared to just writing down the proof
I c I c ty for tips
Such "proof assistant online judges" have existed, for instance, check out the Coq/Agda/Lean problems on Codewars or https://do.proof.in.tum.de/.
These problems tend to feature topics like program verification/semantics moreso than competition math. This is probably due to the lack of good library support, which forces problems to be based on easy-to-define concepts, and also the interest of the userbase, which seems pretty small. But it would be interesting to create a math olympiad-type contest with the expectation that contestants can refer to a library like Lean's mathlib, for instance.
I see, thanks for the suggestion!
oh that makes sense, it doesn't seem too hard to set up since it's equivalent to checking if code can compile. but yeah definitely seems more difficult to use for olympiad-style problems without some standard library that makes it easier
however, i think this is the only real way that olympiad math can be scaled up to the level that CP is (though you can argue there is a smaller demand since many people do CP for some benefit like interview prep)
I actually developed something like this called semicolon math. I managed to run 3 contests with a format of 6 AIME-like questions (easy, medium, hard) and got around 100 participants total but after that there weren't too many people interested.
I think the hardest part is going to be getting people to want to write problems for the platform (especially if it's new with not many participants). Setting up a mock AMC/AIME contest takes a lot of work and if you create a new format (like I did) it may be hard for people to take interest. (Ad: By the way, if your interested in helping out for a project check out https://starlightps.org which I'm working on now.)
If you want to redeploy this idea again I think it's worth using the code I already written. Let me know any thoughts.
Yea your code for semicolon math would be really helpful. I'll message you about it.
There is a Japanese online judge called OnlineMathContest that often holds contests similar to AtCoder. The problems are only available in Japanese, but using Google Translate / DeepL can help with translation.
Similar to Project Euler or AIME, the answer for each problem is an integer, requiring you to submit just the integer value.
As for contest rules, you are not allowed to write any program to assist in calculating the answer, nor can you search for the answer on the internet. Hopes this helps!
Yup helps a lot. Thanks!
I personally think it is a nice idea but as others mentioned, the structure of math competitions is quite different to that of competitive programming, and I'm not sure how it would fare on a completely virtual platform.
Nonetheless, I do hope you create it or find something of the sort because I'd be interested in trying it :)
Encouraging :) ty
https://www.mathraining.be/ problems are in french but you can translate them FR/ENG translation is pretty decent !
Thanks for the site!
An important, yet forgotten, part of math contest history was the series of math contests on the Mathlinks website (now AoPS). An archive of its problems can be found here.
Much thanks