Named in honor of

Benoit Mandelbrot Benoit B. Mandelbrot (20 November 1924 – 14 October 2010) was a Polish-born French-American mathematician and polymath with broad interests in the practical sciences, especially regarding what he labeled as "the art of roughness" of phy ...

, the Mandelbrot Competition was a

mathematics competition Mathematics competitions or mathematical olympiads are competitive events where participants complete a math test. These tests may require multiple choice or numeric answers, or a detailed written solution or proof. International mathematics compe ...

founded by

Sam Vandervelde Samuel Kendrick Vandervelde (born 12 February 1971) is a mathematician who, along with Sandor Lehoczky and Richard Rusczyk, is most notable for creating the Mandelbrot Competition, and being listed first under "Thanks" in the mathematical textboo ...

Richard Rusczyk Richard Rusczyk ( or ; ; born September 21, 1971) is the founder and chief executive officer of Art of Problem Solving Inc. (as well as the website, which serves as a mathematics forum and place to hold online classes) and a co-author of the Ar ...

and Sandor Lehoczky that operated from 1990 to 2019. It allowed high school students to compete individually and in four-person teams.

Competition

The Mandelbrot was a "correspondence competition," meaning that the competition was sent to a school's coach and students competed at their own school on a predetermined date. Individual results and team answers were then sent back to the contest coordinators. The most notable aspects of the Mandelbrot competition were the difficulty of the problems (much like the

American Mathematics Competition The American Mathematics Competitions (AMC) are the first of a series of competitions in secondary school mathematics that determine the United States team for the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). The selection process takes place over th ...

and harder

American Invitational Mathematics Examination The American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME) is a highly selective and prestigious 15-question 3-hour test given since 1983 to those who rank in the top 5% on the AMC 12 high school mathematics examination (formerly known as the AHSME) ...

problems) and the proof-based team round. Many past medalists at the

International Mathematics Olympiad The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is a mathematical olympiad for pre-university students, and is the oldest of the International Science Olympiads. The first IMO was held in Romania in 1959. It has since been held annually, except i ...

first tried their skills on the Mandelbrot Competition.

History

The Mandelbrot Competition was started by

and Sandor Lehoczky while they were undergraduates in the early 1990s. Vandervelde ran the competition until its completion in 2019. Rusczyk now manages Art of Problem Solving Inc. and Lehoczky enjoys a successful career on

Wall Street Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for t ...

Contest format

The individual competition consisted of seven questions of varying value, worth a total of 14 points, that students had 40 minutes to answer. The team competition was a proof-based competition, where many questions were asked about a particular situation, and a team of four students was given 60 minutes to answer.

Divisions

The Mandelbrot Competition had two divisions, referred to as ''National'' and ''Regional.'' Questions at the National level were more difficult than those at the Regional level, but generally had overlap or concerned similar topics. For example, in the individual competition, the National competition would remove some of the easier Regional questions, and add some harder questions. In the team competition, the topic would be the same but the National level would be given fewer hints.

Results

Results would be published after each annual iteration of the contest, and in its final iteration, the results were published online with School leaderboards and Individual leaderboards divided by region and national. The School Results for the Spruce Region in 2018-2019 were posted o
this link
{{Cite web, url=http://web.mandelbrot.org/dynamic/standings/?tier=1&group=team&league=regional®ion=6&year=2018, title=The Mandelbrot Competition, website=web.mandelbrot.org

References

External links

The Mandelbrot Competition
Mathematics competitions