04 AMOC 1981-90

The decade 1981 to 1990 covered the ten first years of Australia sending teams to the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). It was before the days of the Challenge, and so the results should be taken in the context that AMOC had to do all training beyond what the student would know from normal class experience.

The decade was despite all this remarkable, because early in the period Australia decided to apply to host IMO, and did in fact succeed, in the process expanding IMO significantly by adding many countries from the Asia Pacific region. So this will rather dominate this chapter.

It will be useful for the reader when appropriate to cross-reference during this chapter with Chapter A2 for more formal detail, which lists detailed Olympiad results. Also Jim Williams is such a strong force in the creation of the training program and more detail of his life can be found in Chapter A8 (Life Tributes). I did not attend any of these first ten IMOs, except for being in Canberra as first guests were arriving (I was to represent the Australian Mathematics Competition at ICME-6 in Budapest and elsewhere at the same time and Peter O'Halloran did not attend ICME-6). I would appreciate it if any reader can provide information which could be added, such as anything about a year's exam paper, unusual incidents, where you stayed, etc. This can be done by contacting me directly at pjt013@gmail.com.

1981: Committee Activity

The Committee was very busy in anticipation of its first attendance at IMO. There was a lot of focus on sponsorship, even though IBM was on board, Peter O'Halloran wrote a `Diary of frustration' listing unsuccessful attempts to get financial support from the government and much from other corporations. The Second AMO was held in the early months and the team of eight announced in May. There was also a meeting of the committee in May, attended by Professors Neumann and Burns and Peter O'Halloran and Jim Williams, as well as Professor Gavin Brown, of the University of NSW as a new member, Derek Holton, Mike Newman, Ren Potts and Dr White of IBM. Non-members in attendance were Geoff Ball, who was taking over as NSW Organiser from Mike Hirschhorn, Roger Eggleton, from the University of Newcastle, which hosted the training camp (also attended by Paul Erdos), Professor John Giles, also of the University of Newcastle, Professor George Szekeres and Mr PD O'Connor, of the Academy. This meeting was held in the Carslaw Building of the University of Sydney on 13 May. Dr Joe Gani resigned due to a coming long absence.

1981: Washington, first appearance

Whereas this was Australia's first appearance, it was not a token one. In fact Australia would have been at the 1980 IMO in Mongolia if it had not been cancelled during tensions about the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The first Australian Mathematical Olympiad (AMO) had in fact been held in 1979 and by 1981, not only did we have quite a good knowledge of who the best students were, but we had been able to train them up somewhat. So whereas the team was not conducted after such a wide sweep and with the same level of training as today, it was selected with the best methods available at the time, and pretty good methods.

The first Australian team was led by Jim Williams and George Szekeres was the Deputy leader. The names of the team members can be found in Chapter A2 and the team was happy to emerge with a first Medal, a Bronze, to Richard Wilson. One of the students, Alan Blair, was to be the only student for decades to represent the team as a year 9 student and he was to get two further appearances. At least four of the students, Ken Ross (Computer Science Professor in the US), Jim Farmer (Actuary Lecturer at Macquarie Uni), Alan Blair (Computer Science in US, and returned to Melbourne Uni and then the Computer Science Dept of UNSW) and Ken Skinner (DSTO) are to have gone on to significant later careers as mathematicians. Geoffrey Heenan became a significant economist in the US and later worked in the International Monetary Fund.

From all accounts this first IMO was a very enjoyable experience. The Australian team was not successful on day one, but improved on day two. They found themselves playing sport and other games with students from other countries and made a lot of friendships.

I have been told one interesting anecdote of this IMO. Until then the leader of each team was its most senior person, not necessarily its best mathematician. It was generally believed the Leaders of teams from Socialist countries were government appointees whose aim was more to manage the team than be the mathematical leader. When the teams arrived in Washington, it was announced that the leaders would be taken to a retreat, away from the teams, to set the papers, as is still done in 2012, and the deputies would stay with the students. For each of the socialist countries the leaders and deputies immediately swapped roles, and the deputies, in their new-found roles went on the retreat to set the exams.

This first appearance by Australia was also to be the last time in which countries sent teams of eight to the IMO.

1982: Committee Activity

The year started with a meeting on 22 January in the Carslaw Building at the University of Sydney. It was attended by the four main members in Professors Neumann and Burns and Messrs O'Halloran and Williams as well as other members Professor Gavin Brown, Norm Hoffman, Jim Kelly, Mike Newman and Dr White of IBM. There were also a few non-members in attendance. These included John Gaffney, an experienced mathematics consultant in South Australia's Department in Education, whose colleague Vern Treilibs was soon to take over as state organiser. Also present were Dr Terry Gagen, who ran an enrichment program on Friday nights at Chatswood, Professor John Giles again from Newcastle, Dr Ash Plank, from Canberra CAE, formerly at Duntroon, and who was being appointed as Assistant to and soon to relieve John Burns during a brief absence, George Szekeres and Mr B Werry.

There were the usual issues, trying to raise money, and continuing to approach the Federal Government, selection and training methods, introduction of the Interstate Finals to be held later in the year, and for the first time it was revealed by Peter O'Halloran that discussions had commenced with the Bicentennial Authority to fund a hosting of the IMO in 1988.

There was a second meeting, said to be a meeting of State Directors, held at Bruce Hall, ANU on 20 November. This was attended by the usual Bernhard Neumann, Peter O'Halloran, Jim Williams and John Burns, and also the State Directors Geoff Ball (NSW), Neil Williams (Qld), Norm Hoffman ((WA), Jim Kelly (Tas), Barry Harridge (Vic), Vern Treilibs (SA) and Dennis Thorpe, who replaced Mike Newman as ACT Director. Also present were Dr C McDonald (NSW), George Szekeres (NSW), John Giles (NSW), Marjorie Carss (Qld), Mr K Creed (Vic), Dr P Enge (ACT), Ash Plank (ACT), Laci Kovacs (ACT) and Hugh Southon (Academy).

The meeting was mainly held to reinforce the State Director and training structure, but John Burns also announced that they had made a direct appeal to Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser after it was reported at a meeting with the Australian Olympic Committee he said that `Australians have always wanted to go out to meet ... challenge, whenever it arises, not just in sport but in every field of achievement that Australia has made the sort of progress it has'. The Prime Minister's response was to offer encouragement and to express satisfaction with the support AMOC has received from sponsors.

1982: Budapest

Concern had been mounting about the large cost in hosting IMO, and for this event, to reduce the cost, IMO was run with 4-man teams. Australia did get a second Bronze medal here with David Chalmers. David had been a consistent AMC medalist, and went on to a significant career as a philosophy professor, first in the US and later at the ANU. Ken Ross and Alan Blair made second appearances. As in 1981 Jim Williams and George Szekeres led the team.

1983: Paris, first Silver Medal

It was regarded that four in a team was too small and so commenced the long tradition of 6-man teams. Jim Williams continued as Leader, but his Sydney University colleague Geoff Ball took up the Deputy Leadership, a role to which he very valuably contributed until 1989. In fact even until 2012 Geoff was still helping NSW AMOC Director Bill Palmer by doing most of the AMOC training in New South Wales.

The highlight was the first Australian Silver Medal, won by Tasmanian student Dirk Vertigan participating for the second time. Dirk went on to an academic career in mathematics in the US. There were also two Bronze Medals, won by Andrew Kepert and Richard Moore. Andrew is now a member of the AMC Problems Committee, probably to become Chairman, while holding an academic position in mathematics at the University of Newcastle. Richard and another team member Stephen Tyler completed mathematics degrees and went on to work in the internet industry. David Baldwin also completed a mathematics degree and went on to work in the Teaching and Learning Technology Support Group at the ANU.

Preparing to host IMO 1988

By now Peter O'Halloran and Jim Williams were looking for ways of hosting IMO. Whereas Jim was mainly concerned with directing training, Peter took up more of the planning to host IMO in 1988. He was particularly looking at that year as Government funding was too tight, but the Bicentennial was coming up and there was a fund for hosting significant events. Whereas this was in some doubt on applying and being granted the rights, the money did come, and coupled with generous sponsorship of IBM, which was also supporting the AMOC program, all was likely to be in place.

Peter put in place a plan to run the event in Canberra, with use made of Sydney when students were to arrive while the retreat was to be held at University House ANU, Canberra. Student accommodation, the exams and the opening and closing ceremonies, would be held at the Canberra College of Advanced Education (soon to become University of Canberra).

The organising committee was also formed and is shown above. In the back row is David Hunt, UNSW, who was to become Chief Coordinator, Ren Potts, Professor of the University of Adelaide, who was to become Jury Chairman and Chair of the Problem Selection Committee, John Burns, Professor at RMC Duntroon and ADFA, who was Secretary and Treasurer of AMOC, Bill Galvin of the University of Newcastle. In front from left is Rod Jory, Canberra CAE, Director of the Physics Olympiad program, Peter O'Halloran, Sally Bakker (AMC Manager) and Jeff Baxter, of AAMT and Treasurer.

1984: Prague

The next Australian team was the 1984 team which went to Prague. It obtained the highest placing, 15th of any team so far. There was another Silver Medal, this one won by South Australian Michael Peake, who later used his maths to go into the IT industry and become South Australian Director of AMOC. Two other Bronze Medals were won by Alan Blair, participating in his third and final Olympiad, and Matthew Hardman, who later became an Associate Lecturer in Mathematics at the University of Sydney. Of other members Jonathon Ennis used his mathematics to eventually work with CSIRO's Petroleum Division and Andrew Jenkins used his mamathematics to become a quant in an international bank.

1985: Helsinki, Australia's highest placing, first Gold Medal and first female representative

The 1985 IMO in Helsinki, still under the leadership of Jim Williams and Geoff Ball, was historic for three reasons. First, Australia's pacing of 11th was its highest ever, and in the time frame of this history, the second highest ever.

The most publicised feat of this team though is the winning of Australia's first Gold Medal, by Western Australian student Andrew Hassell. Hassell had been prominent through his school career at winning AMC medals and proved there is a high correlation between this and higher performance with a stunning performance in Helsinki. There is a photo of him in Chapter A2 after his score was posted and another on Jim Williams' obituary in Chapter A8.

There was also a Silver Medallist in the team, John Graham, who was to become a team Deputy Leader in the early 1990s and go on to a mathematical career as an academic at the University of Birmingham. And there were two Bronze Medallists. Shane Booth, of Shepparton, had been one of the most consistent AMC medallists as was the other, Alasdair Grant. Both went on to mathematical careers.

Significant was the selection of Catherine Playoust. Catherine was to go on to win a Bronze Medal in 1986 leading a dynasty of girls in Australian teams, all of whom until 2012 won medals, except one who arguably would have easily done so without falling ill on the second day. Catherine was a broadly intellectual person who was a proficient musician and went on to a highly distinguished career in theology.

1986 to 1988: Committee changes

Toward the latter part of the 1980s it was time for some changes. The most significant was the retirement in 1986 of Bernhard Neumann. Bernhard was arguably Australia's most important mathematician over a 40-year period, a great inspiration to many and great facilitator. Bernhard's career is described elsewhere in this history, including anecdotes.

Bernhard's replacement was to be Gordon Preston, a very strong appointment indeed. Having come from England, he had spent the war in the Bletchley group, where he was a colleague of Alan Turing and used to run at lunch times in Turing's running group (Turing narrowly missed selection in the UK marathon team for the London 1948 Olympics). Preston headed a very strong mathematics department at Monash University and in addition to his excellence as a mathematician was an incredibly strong academic leader. He was to provide outstanding service to AMOC and later the Trust, as will be documented elsewhere. (Postscript: Preston was to die on 15 April, 2015, possibly in England, just 10 days before his 90th birthday.)

The year 1986 also saw Jim Williams leave the committee. At the beginning of the year he was suffering from a vascular illness and his doctor advised him not to attend IMO. David Hunt was planning to attend as an Observer, preparing for hosting the 1988 IMO and he replaced Jim Williams as Team Leader for 1986. Geoff Ball took over as Director of Training until 1990, when David Paget took up the position.

Basil Rennie had been initially in charge of problem creation but he had died early in the piece. Jim Williams had taken up the role of problem creation but there had been concern that this should be independent of training, and with a strong moderation team. When Gordon Preston became chair he brought with him Hans Lausch, who was to fulfil this role strongly through 2012. Gordon also brought in Emanuel Strzelecki, who was to be Team Leader in 1987 and 1988 while hosting, and freeing David Hunt to be Chief Problems Coordinator for the 1988 IMO.

In 1988 there was to be another significant retirement from the founding group in John Burns. Burns had been a Professor at RMC Duntroon and ADFA. Highly respected, he had been born in New Zealand and completed his PhD at Cambridge under Sir James Lighthill FRS, and provided significant experience and sustained input to AMOC. John and his wife Eleanor were living in retirement at the end of 2012.

1986: Warsaw, advent of a prodigy

1986 was to see the retirement of Jim Williams as IMO Team Leader, for health reasons, a month or so before the team was scheduled to leave, to be replaced by David Hunt. David was a UNSW academic who was on the IMO 1988 Organising Committee destined to be the Chief Coordinator and in charge of most academic roles, including Chair of the Problem Selection Committee.

This was to be the most even of Australia's performances so far, with five Bronze Medals won. The most famous of these is the one won by ten-year-old prodigy Terence Tao. We had heard a lot about young Terry but until this year we were not sure how good he really was. He did enter the AMC for the first time, as a Senior, and won a medal. This was the first time in which his ability had been openly measured. But he had also made the IMO team and could have provided a challenge for the leaders being such a young boy to take away. However Terry fitted in well, socially, with the team, and needed no special treatment. Furthermore he underlined his ability by winning one of the five Bronze Medals. Terry's history is referred to in Chapter A2, but most notably, in 2012 he is the only Australian to have won the Fields Medal.

Of the other Bronze Medallists, two were from the previous year's team in Catherine Playoust and David Hogan, while the other two came from Canberra's Ben Robinson and Tasmanian Ross Jones. All of the medallists were to continue with mathematics careers, although Catherine was to eventually specialise in theology.

1987: Havana, calm before the storm

This was the last IMO Australia attended before hosting its own. Because David Hunt would be involved in IMO as Chairman of the Problems Selection Committee and Chief Coordinator a new Team Leader would be needed for 1988 and Emanuel Strzelecki, of Monash University, was chosen to lead this 1987 team instead of David, still with Geoff Ball as deputy.

As it happened three members of the team won Silver Medals, Terry Tao scoring 40 points in the process, also Canberra's Ben Robinson and Perth's Kin Yan Chung. This was only one of two occasions before 2012 in which Canberra had two representatives. Canberra's other representative, Ian Wanless, has enjoyed a strong mathematical career, leading him to being an Associate Professor at Monash University and a long term member of AMOC's Senior Problems Committee.

1988: Canberra, hosting IMO

Hosting IMO was a huge boost for AMOC. It drew together many volunteers who had not worked with AMOC before and who were so impressed by what was possible they stayed on in various capacities. Organisationally everything went supremely well. The weather was very cold, but the spirits were warm.

The most memorable scenes were at the Closing Ceremony, when Prime Minister Bob Hawke was on hand to present Terry his Gold Medal, still in 2012 the only one to be won by a student writing the exams before his 13th birthday. There is a photo in Chapter A2 of Mr Hawke presenting Terry's Gold medal, but the above additional one shows that he enjoyed the performance, here seen donning the official jacket. At left is Professor Luis Davidson, the Cuban leader and Vice President of the IMO Sites Committee, while at right is Dr Roger Scott, Canberra College of Advanced Education Principal.

There is also a photo of the team in Chapter A2 but the above additional one is a rare one showing also Professor Strzelecki, at right. Others, from left Geoff Ball, Jeremy Liew, Martin Bush, Geoff Bailey, David Jackson, Terry Tao and Martin O'Hely.

We may have hoped for our team to perform better while hosting than getting only one other medal than Terry's. However the placing was quite good, and most of the team solved some of the problems. The second medallist, Geoffrey Bailey, remained active for the Trust in later life, helping found the Informatics program while working at Sydney University on its computer algebra project.

This IMO was also famous for other reasons, the performance of a prodigious Bulgarian girl, Zvezdelina Stankova, for her solution to the difficult Problem 6, and Problem 6 itself, which became one of the most discussed problems in IMO history.

1989: Braunschweig, resuming normal business

In 1989 we were off to Germany, at the historical city of Braunschweig. Terry, despite still being young, had become ineligible due to commencement of University studies at Flinders University, largely under the mentoring of Professor Garth Gaudry, and a new team emerged.

With the IMO hosting now behind us, David Hunt renewed his position as Leader of the Australian team and Director of Training. The new team was loaded with talent, but just days before embarking, Daniel Calegari withdrew from the team due to personal reasons. Danny, also a prolific performer in the AMC had shown great promise for this, and later became a full professor in the US, and one of Australia's most distinguished mathematicians, especially for his work on low dimensional topology.

Without Danny though there was plenty of other talent, with two Silver Medals won by Alan Offer and Mark Kisin, both of whom made their marks with strong research performances. Mark became also a full professor at the University of Chicago, while Alan lived abroad for some time before returning to Australia and now showing very strong commitment to helping talented students here. He joined the AMOC Senior Problems Committee in 2012 and has put an extraordinary amount of very neat work into the problems we are setting in 2013 and understanding of them.

There were also two Bronze Medallists in Kevin Davey and Brian Weatherson, both from Victoria, with the latter having won a number of AMC medals. There is an interesting analogy with these two. Both studied maths and philosophy, but both moved into philosophy and to 2012 both appear to be philosophy professors in the US.

1989: Asia Pacific Mathematics Olympiad

In the latter years of the 1980s Peter O'Halloran saw a need for a regional Olympiad. There had already been a very successful Ibero-American Mathematical Olympiad conducted in Spanish and Portuguese. It fulfilled a useful purpose in the Spanish and Portuguese countries, giving students extra experience and helping in the selection of IMO teams. Peter argued in various fora for an Asian Pacific one, originally just for the Western Pacific, as in his article of Volume 5 of the WFNMC Journal (Feb 1987, pp 4 to 6). There was presumably a meeting of various leaders at the 1988 IMO while in Canberra and the first event, held in 1989, included just Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia only, which Australia won for the first and only time.

The event grew quite strongly to the extent that by 2012 there were about 25 regular participating countries. Past results can be found here at the Trust's web site. It is very easy to run as it does not involve travel and local countries can enter whoever they like. Australia has a policy of choosing 30, which gives a meaning to the certificates to what our contestants get. Peter also found a nice way of structuring medals, so they can be better spread out than at IMO without being too spread.

1990: Beijing

David Hunt remained as Leader but Geoff Ball had now retired as Deputy Leader. His place was taken by Dr David Paget, a highly energetic applied mathematician from The University of Tasmania who had been inspired by the Canberra IMO and had a very strong program of mathematics training in his home state. David Paget was to become Leader for a number of years, and during his time a number of Tasmanian students also rose to become team members, due to his charismatic teaching and also use of the Tournament of Towns as a focus for his program. If ever one requires an example of how a teacher inspires a generation of students, David is it.

By 1990 some training was being done at Melbourne Grammar School, where Lawrence Doolan was Head of Mathematics. Lawrence was another of those mathematicians inspired by Canberra's IMO and had become Victorian Director of AMOC. He was also using Tournament of Towns as focus for the Victorians in training. The photo above shows the team at the pre-IMO school at Melbourne Grammar, with David Paget, left, and Lawrence second from left. Then from left Elisabeth, Angelo, Timothy, Brian, Dominic and Joseph.

David Paget's wife Leone, who ultimately attended this and five more IMOs regarded this as the best she went to. It is not unnatural to regard your first IMO as the best (I probably also regard my first as the best and some sort of benchmark) but Beijing was laden with many interesting venues to see also. It was substantially based at the Jimen Hotel, in the north-western suburbs of Beijing, near the University of Peking and Academia Sinica. The photo above shows the team arriving at the Jimen Hotel.

The 1990 team was again very interesting for a number of reasons.

It was a particularly pleasant IMO for the Australian delegation as each student won a medal. There were 2 Silver and 4 Bronze. The Silvers were won by Victorians Timothy Adam and Brian Weatherson. Brian, of course was competing for the second time. Timothy, who had also been successful at AMC as a medallist was the first of a dynasty of Scotch College Olympiads to appear in the following years under the tutelage of Dr Michael Evans, who had become Head of Mathematics at Scotch. Michael was to become Deputy Leader later on but also had a very distinguished career as a teacher in the Victorian system, a successful text book writer in his own right, and later through his work with the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI) one of the lead writers for the ICE-EM texts, the best mathematics texts ever developed for Australian schools.

The Bronze Medallists were also noteworthy. Dominic Yip and Joseph Lau both pursued careers in the private sector using mathematics, Joseph as an actuary.

1990 was also the first year of participation by Angelo Di Pasquale, who was to follow in 1991 with a second Bronze Medal. Angelo was to continue his association with AMOC continually, always appearing at training camps, then becoming Deputy Leader in 1997 and from 2001 becoming Leader and Director of Training, while based at the University of Melbourne. It would have been easy for someone in such a position for such a long time to become stale, but Angelo continues to hone his techniques, stay close to changes in mathematical developments (which, surprisingly happen, such as the development of inequalities like the Muirhead Inequality to generalise understanding), teaching patterns, and logistical issues. Angelo has stayed very close to all Olympians and knows which ones to use in various roles, and above all, Angelo is an amazingly sensitive person, and consults inclusively, often anticipating difficult issues and being transparent.

Last but certainly not least is Elisabeth le Strange, the second girl to represent Australia and seen above on excursion with team guide Wen Jin Hua. Her background is uncanningly similar to that of Catherine Playoust, and also became steeped in the traditions of Sydney University, both with similar broad intellect. Like Catherine, she was strong musically, and she played in the Sydney Youth Orchestra for 10 years. Like Catherine also, she had a qualification in theology. In the end though, interestingly, she married 1990 Physics Olympian Keith Brain and after broad University first degrees, including theoretical physics and then medicine at Sydney University, she trained to be a medical specialist at Oxford.

The Toolchest

During the middle 1980s it became clear that it would be useful to document the things students need to know to become an Olympian. There is no official IMO syllabus, but the nature of the IMO questions seemed to define what is "in" and what is "out" and AMOC members compiled a glossary of results, divided into a number of chapters. This evolved into The Toolchest, which is a unique publication internationally. Essentially every aspiring Olympian should have a copy and be familiar with the contents.

In my view mathematics is much more of an evolving subject than is given credit and there is scope for this book to be reviewed and evolve more dynamically than it is. Changes I have noticed include the inequality treatments I referred to above and the fact that (horror!) there has not been a three-dimensional Euclidean problem set in many years, which indicate they are now "out". The problem of review is that the people who can do this best are volunteers busy on other things. I hope that when a book about to be produced on the material in the training camps is released, we can go back to this. I would not remove any results on 3-D geometry though.

The Challenge

Towards the end of the 1980s the burden of training students from direct classroom experience was starting to tell. There was an exam which was then called The Interstate Finals (which became replaced by AIMO, when the Challenge came in, designed to be the final stage of the Challenge, with Noether as advisory prerequisite) in which State Directors were able to administer a later national test than the AMC to those students they had identified from the AMC. But it was just that. It was just a second test and the Directors still had to do a lot of basic training before or after.

A way had to be found of providing teachers with support materials so we could start training from a higher base knowledge. Peter O'Halloran found that Bruce Henry (seen above a couple of years later, in 1992, receiving a BH Neumann Award from Victorian Governor McGarvie in Government House) was a man who shared this vision and was the man with the capacity to fill it. Peter and Bruce did a lot of walking together, and a lot of talking, through the late 1980s, to prepare for this.

The Challenge and Enrichment did not hit the streets in their first form until 1992 but in the late 1980s volunteers from in and around AMOC were being recruited to prepare the material and planning and writing were in full swing.

More will be said later. However it is impossible to compare the IMO placings of the 1980s with those which exist now. If we had not brought in the Challenge our placings would have declined dramatically because of the effect of the breakup of the Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries, and the fact that in the 1980s the powerhouse countries of Asia had not started to participate. The value of the Challenge was to be manifested in 1997, when a sufficient body of students had been through the process and showed the benefits. From 1997 the real placings of Australian teams did lift dramatically as a result, so the preparatory work of the late 1980s was to be worth it. The final essential steps in the pyramid were being assembled.